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ROOTS AND FRUITS OF THE 
CHRISTIAN LIFE; 



ILLUSTEATIONS OF FAITH AND OBEDIENCE. 



REV. WILLIAM ARNOT, 

AUTIIOE OF "illustrations OF THE BOOK OF PKOVERES," &C. 



" And now abideth fiiith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of (base 
is charity." — 1 Corinthians iiii. 13. 



LONDON: 

T. NELSON AND SONS, PATERNOSTER EOW; 

EDINBURGH; AND NEW YOliK. 



nu 






Gift f«om 
Judge and Mrs. Isaac R. Hltt 
Nov. 17. 1^31 



CONTENTS. 






\ Page 

I. Faith, Hope, Love, ... ... ... ... ... 9 

II. The Mediator between (jOD and Man, ... ... ... 25 

III. The Lamentations of Jesus, ... .., ... ... 88 

IV. The Nature AND Source OF True Philanthkopy^ ... ... 51 

V. The Place of the Law in the Salvation of Sinners, ... ... 69 

VL Vessels Chosen, Charged, and Used in the Work of the Lord, ... 86 

VIL The Use AND Abuse OF the World, ... ... ... ... 102 

VIII. All things are Yours, when rou are Christ's, ... .v. 119 

IX. Divine Wisdom, as seen in the Nature of Tiru Gospel, ... ... 141 

X. Divine Wisdom, as seen in the Effects of the Gospel, ... 155 

XI. Corrected Estimates, ... ... ... ... ... 170 C^ 

XII. The Apostle AND High Priest OF our Profession, ... ... 184 

XIIL God's Loud Call to a Sleeping World, ... ... ^.. 198 / 

XIV. Willing to Wait, but Ready to Go, ... ... ... 212 / 

XV. The Redeemer's Tears, ... ... ... ... ... 224 

XVI. The Strait Gate NOT A Shut Gate, ... .... ... ... 237 

XVII. Good Cheer FOR Sad Hearts, ... ... ... ... 252 

XVIII. Christians in Darkness when Christ is not Near, ... ... 2G8 

XIX. The Kingdom in Word, and the Kingdom in Power, ... ... 285 

XX. Godly Sorrow, and ITS Precious Fruit, ... ... ... 300 

XXI. The Laav and the Conscience : — Their Quarrel made up, ... 314 

XXIL Physical Destitution stifling Spiritual Life, ... ... 327 

XXin. Man and HIS Glory LIKE the Grass AND ITS Flower, ... ... 342 

XXIV. Living Faith A Working Faith, ... ... ... ... 356 

XXV. I AM Debtor, ... ... ... ... ,,. ... 370 

XXVL To HIM THAT Hath shall be Given :— A Law of the Christais Sabbath, 388 

XXVII. Seed to the Sower, and Bread to the Eater, ... ... 401 

XXVin. The Peace of God Ruling in the Heart, ... ... ... 415 



ROOTS AND FRUITS OF THE 
CHRISTIAN LIFE. 



I. 

FAITH, HOPE, LOVE. 

** And now abideth faith, hope^ charity, these three ; but the greatest of these 
is charity." — 1 CoR. xiii. 13. 

Now, by the grace of the Lord and the ministry of the 
Spirit, these three have an abode on the earth ; but they 
came from heaven. They flourish in the wilderness, but 
they are the planting of the Lord. These three ! The 
finger of God is pointing to them as the objects on earth 
that he loves best to look upon — as the fragments re- 
maining yet of a lost paradise, and the earnests of a 
coming heaven. 

These three coalesce, and constitute one whole. To 
break off one is to destroy the integrity of the body, and 
leave the other members to decay. With a view to the 
exposition and application of the text, consider — 



10 FAITH, HOPE, LOVE. 

I. The specific nature of each ; " Faith, hope, love." 
II. The mutual relations of all ; " These three." 
III. The superior magnitude of the last ; " The great- 
est of these is love." 

I. The specific natui*e of each ; " Faith, hope, love." 

1. Faith. As to its origin, it is the gift of God ; as 
to its operation, it is the work of the Spirit ; as to its 
object, it fastens on Christ ; as to its exercise, it is the 
disciple s own act — '' Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ 
and thou shalt be saved ; " " He that belie veth not is 
condemned already, because he believeth not on the 
only-begotten Son of God." 

Faith designates the act of a sinful man when he 
accepts Christ from God on God's own terms. It is the 
man's own deed, and yet it is utterly destitute of merit. 
If lost, helpless sinners of mankind reject the salvation 
which is offered in the gospel, that rejection is a substan- 
tial addition to their guilt ; but if they accept it, the 
act of accepting constitutes no righteousness. The Scrip- 
tures make much of faith — " Precious faith ; " " Thy 
faith hath saved thee ; " " Without faith it is impossible 
to please God." 

Faith is the first stone of the building, but it is not 
the foundation. It is the act of cleaving to Christ, but 
all its value depends on the worth of the Christ to whom 
you cleave. A man may have faith — real, ardent, ener- 
getic faith — in saints and images, and priests and relics ; 
yet his faith does not save him. A drowning man puts 
forth his hand and seizes with more than natural energy 



FAITH, HOPE, LOVE. 11 

a bit of fro til that dances on the crest of a wave ; his 
hand cleaves it like air, and he sinks helpless in the 
deep. He is lost, not for want of precision in his aim, 
or of energy in his grasp, but for want of truth and 
power in the phantom to which he fled. Our help is 
laid on One that is mighty. Christ saves to the utter- 
most. On the person, and righteousness, and sacrifice, 
and intercession of Immanuel, we must lean, when the 
burden of sin threatens to weigh us down to the second 
death. " Christ is God's,'' and when " ye are Christ's '" 
all is well. " Blessed are all they that put their trust 
in him." 

Bew^are how you come to Christ. Come worthless, empty, 
guilty. Come to him before you have anything, and to him 
for all. If you cover yourself beforehand with preparations 
in order that you may be somewhat more worthy of his 
acceptance, and consequently somewhat less indebted to his 
forgiving love, you lose all. If any rag of self-righteous- 
ness come between a sinner and the Saviour, it will keep 
them separate. Naked and bleeding must the branch 
be laid upon the naked and bleeding tree, in the process 
of engrafting. If any covering were first wrapped round 
it, the branch would never draw life — the tree would 
never give it. So, in the regeneration, a soul stricken 
through with the consciousness of guilt, and naked of 
goodness, must cleave to Christ crucified for pardon and 
righteousness. Any w^ork of yours, by way of recom- 
mending you, will be a non-conductor through which the 
light of life from the Saviour cannot run into the dead. 
To this effect is the pointed and startling protest of the 



12 FAITH, HOPE, LOVE. 

apostle against the inborn and inveterate legalism of 
even converted Jews : " Behold, I Paul say unto you, that 
if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing'' 
(Gal. V. 2). In the matter of a sinner's salvation, Christ 
is all, or nothing. The cleaving of the destitute for all 
to the fulness of the Godhead bodily in the incarnate 
Son — this, this is faith. 

2. Hope. Blessed hope ! If you did not know, by 
tasting, how sweet it is, I would labour in vain to tell 
you. It is a light shed down from heaven to cheer a 
dark and troubled scene. It is like moonlight borrowed 
from the sun to mitigate the darkness, which it cannot 
dispel Hope is adapted to a transitory, imperfect state. 
Its office is to diminish, in some measure, the sorrows 
of the present, by drawing beforehand on the stores of 
future joy. 

Applied to the richest gifts of God and the highest 
interests of man, hope reaches from earth to heaven, and 
fastens the anchor of the soul within the veil, where it is 
sure and steadfast, so that the expectation of eternal rest 
may enable the weary to bear with patience the tossings 
of time's troubled sea. 

But, remember, " he never had a hope who never had 
a fear." Hope is the tenant, not of a heart that was 
never broken, but of a heart that has been broken and 
healed again. A pure, bright star fixed high in heaven, 
it reaches with its rays the uplifted eye of the weary 
pilgrim ; but stars shine not in the day ; the darkness 
brings them out. So grief summons hope to the aid of 
the sufierer. When the ransomed rise from the sleep of 



FAITH, HOPE, LOVE. 13 

the grave, and open their eyes on the dawning of an 
everlasting day, this gentle star, which had often soothed 
them in the night of their pilgrimage, will nowhere be 
found in all the upper firmament ; for, in presence of the 
Sun of righteousness, hope, no longer needed, no more 
appears. 

3. Love.^' Some fragments of this heavenly thing 
survive the fall, and flourish in our nature. It is beauti- 
ful even in ruins. As an instinct in families, where it 
is not entirely covered and choked by rank vices grow- 
ing near, it seems one feature left of man's first likeness 
to his Maker. But feeble, changeable, and impure is all 
the love that is born with us. At the best it expatiates 
only on a low level, and expatiates irregularly, inter- 
mittently, even there. The love which is strung on with 
kindred graces in our text, is the work of the Spirit in 
renewed men. 

The emotion only is named, not its objects. Love is ^ 
like a fire burning, or a light shining. If such a flame 
is kindled in your heart, its rays will stream forth indis- 
criminately in every direction. They will fall impar- 
tially on great and small, on good and evil. Upward, 
downward, and all around, flows love — love to God in 
heaven, and to men on earth — love to the good, who 
deserve your esteem, and the evil, who need your com- 
passion. 

But while, in the text itself, the object of love is not 



* The term love is used throughout instead of charity, because, in the present 
day at least, it expresses more exactly the idea of the original, and is less liable 
to be misunderstood. 



14' FAITH, HOPE, LOVE. 

expressly specified, the preceding portion of the chapter 
is wholly occupied with love in its lower exercise — love 
to our fellow-creatures of human kind. The thirteenth 
chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians is dear to 
the Church of Christ, as a comment, ever fresh and spark- 
ling like a flowing stream, on the second great command- 
ment : " Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" 
But from the upper spring this nether channel must be 
fed. We must be lifted up to the first commandment : 
" Thou shalt love the Lord thy God ; " and thence the 
stream of love will freely flow. " Faith in the Lord 
Jesus'' is the first characteristic of a true Christian, and 
" love to all the saints " is the second. 

Incidentally we shall learn more about the nature of 
love, when, in the progress of our illustration, we are 
called to consider its magnitude. In the effort to esti- 
mate its quantity, light will be thrown upon its kind. 

11. The mutual relations of all ; " These three." 
Hitherto we have spoken of them as three rings lying 
beside each other — now we speak of them as three 
links within each other, so as to constitute a chain. A 
chain of three links presents two joinings ; under this 
head, accordingly, two things claim our attention : 
1. The relation between faith and hope ; and 2. The 
relation between hope and love. 

1. The relation between faith and hope. Faith, as 
we have seen, leans on Christ, and hope hangs by faith. 
Faith's hold of a Saviour is your life, and the conscious- 
ness of that hold makes you hopeful. There is, indeed 



FAITH, HOPE, LOVE. 15' 

a species of hope which has no connection with faith. 
Houses built upon the sand present a goodly appearance 
while the day is fair. Men first wish that God were not 
so just as the Bible represents him to be, and thereafter 
believe their own lie. The hope which they hug is not 
a living hope. In the hour of need it will be "as rotten- 
ness in the bones." 

Among the fallen every good thing, whether material 
or spiritual, is counterfeited. The Scriptures speak spe- 
cifically of a living hope ; there must, therefore, be a 
dead one — of '' a hope that maketh not ashamed ;'" there 
must, therefore, be one that will make its possessor 
ashamed when the day shall reveal its falsehood. If, in 
a place of danger, you saw a chain whose uppermost 
link was surely fixed in the living rock, and whose low^est 
link, a goodly iron ring, was vibrating invitingly near, 
you might be induced, by the prospect of an easy de- 
liverance, to venture your body's weight upon its seem- 
ing strength. If that lowest link were not within the 
one above it, but only attached externally by some brittle 
twig, you would exchange the slippery place of danger 
for the plunge into inevitable death. It is like the fall 
of a sinner, who has risked his soul for the great day on 
a hope not linked to faith. The same Scripture that 
speaks of a living (lively) hope, reveals incidentally how 
we may reach it : " Begotten again into a living hope"' 
(1 Pet. i.) How has that strbng nether ring got into 
the equally strong upper ring, so that they form one 
chain, and safely bear their burden ? In the fires. It 
was brought to a white heat ere it could be welded in. 



16 FAITH, HOPE, LOVE. 

It is by a similar process that a soul's hope is admitted 
into living faith, and so becomes living too. A cold 
heart in contact with the dead letter of the truth will not 
suifice, although the two are fitted to each other with all 
the exactitude of a confession. There must be a melting 
heat. It is when the heart flows down like water under 
the glow of redeeming love, that hope is fixed on faith, 
and faith is fixed on Jesus, never to part again. 

When hope is thus held up, you may load it freely. 
It will bear any strain. Having such support, you count 
the heaviest afflictions light, because they are not worthy 
to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed. 
In presence of this blessed comforter, death seems the 
Father's servant, sent to bring the children home. The 
gi'ave becomes the place where the Lord lay, and through 
the opening which he made in its dark sides shine the 
resurrection of the just, and a glorious immortality. All 
these are enjoyed by anticipation, like grapes of Eshcol 
brought out into the wilderness to be tasted before the 
time ; and it is hope — ^hope depending on faith — that 
flies as on eagle's wings across the separating flood, and 
refreshes the pilgrim in the later stages of his journey 
with first-fruits of the promised land. 

2. The relation between hope and love. Self-sacrific- 
ing human love is the product of Christian faith. The 
fear of God is the true source of genuine. regard for man. 
Christ's life is the example, and his word gives the law 
of love. But while remotely and generically love leans 
on Christian faith, immediately and specifically it depends 
on the hope of a Christian. Hope leans on faith, and 



FAITH, HOPE, LOVE. 17 

love on hope. Love, the beauteous top-stone on the house 
of God, could not maintain its place aloft, unless faith, 
resting directly on the rock, were surely laid beneath ; 
but it is not the less true, that both its elevation and its 
beauty are due to other graces of the Spirit, which are 
piled, course over course, upon faith. 

The only true love is love that will bear and do in 
behalf of its object. The chapter which our text con- 
cludes is one grand anthem on love. The grace which is 
enjoined, described, and almost sung throughout, is not a 
name, but a substance. Its two elements are action and 
suffering. The two sides of living love are meekly to 
bear evil, and energetically to do good, in behalf of every 
brother, according to his need and your opportunity. 
Christ's example is its rule : " Love one another as I have 
loved you.'' 

Such is love ; but love will languish unless blessed 
hope be underneath. The analogy of a plant is frequently 
in the Scriptures joined with that of a building, in 
order that both together may more fully represent the 
Christian life. Love's manifold efforts, as represented in 
the body of this chapter, stretching out in every direction, 
and leaving no space unoccupied, are like the branches of 
a fruit-tree. A single stem supports and supplies them 
all, while itself in turn is supported and supplied by the 
root. So hope, itself sustained by faith, sustains love in 
its turn — energetic, outspreading, fragrant, fruitful love. 

Even Jesus was, in this respect, made like unto his breth- 
ren. Hope in the heart of the Man of Sorrows bore him 
through his labours of love. He, too, " for the joy that 



J 8 FAITH, HOPE, LOVE. 

was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame " 
(Heb. xii. 2). Hope of the glorious issue sustained his 
spirit in the struggle. The master, like the servant, had 
"' respect to the recompense of the reward." 

The history of Jehoshaphat supplies an example of 
hope and love in their true reciprocal relation. A diffi- 
cult enterprise, the reformation of a lapsed nation, lay be- 
fore him. He made the attempt, and succeeded. The 
land was full of idols ; the people steeped in ignorance. 
His task was to spread the word of God, and restore his 
worship. He formed his plan, chose his agents, and set 
to work. It was a scheme of national education, founded 
on revealed religion, and applied to an ignorant, idolatrous 
population. The good king never ceased till the work 
was done ; and the secret of his success is recorded for 
our use in those few simple words of his history, " His 
heart was lifted up in the ways of the Lord." A sinking 
heart would not have sustained a working hand through 
the labour of love which Jehoshaphat undertook and per- 
formed. 

Some persons, not professing to be Papists, look on 
hope with suspicion, as if it were almost a sin. They 
act as if they expected to make a future life safe by 
making the present life bitter. It is an error — an error 
that dishonours God and injures men. To crush hope 
neither engenders faith, nor brings forth holiness. A false 
hope, indeed, is dangerous, but what false thing is safe ? 
Do not exterminate the coin because counterfeits are rife.. 
Beware lest faithfulness degenerate into misanthropy. 
Beware lest you hurt Christ's little ones — lest you quench 



-FAITH, HOPE, LOVE. 1.9 

the joy of the Lord in a true disciple's breast. When a 
ministry, swayed by the one-sided tendencies of an age, 
or race, or locality, crushes every rising stem of hope, by 
digging constantly and unskilfully among the roots of 
humility, it produces a swarm of idle professors, who com- 
plain of their sinfulness in order to prove their saintli- 
ness, but no good soldiers of Jesus Christ. 

Hope is a grand essential quality to be sought for in 
missionaries. Despondency clogs exertion more and more, 
as it sinks, until it reach despair, and then exertion en- 
tirely ceases. Other things being equal, a hopeful Chris- 
tian will be a better witness for God in the heathen's 
sight than a desponding one. Hope is the mainspring 
of labouring love — hope in the Lord, first for yourself 
and then for your neighbour. There is a lion on the 
path of every one who would go forth upon the world to 
win it to the Saviour. The savage African will not give 
earnest heed to anything ; the subtile Asiatics expend all 
their earnestness on idols. Unbelief is graven in the 
very being of the Jews by the uninterrupted habits and 
prejudices of sixty generations ; and, mystery of iniquity, 
throughout the jurisdiction of Rome, a consummate know- 
ledge is successfully wielded to propagate and perpetuate 
a consummate ignorance. Among ourselves, the young 
are vain and the aged covetous ; the rich are proud and 
the poor regardless. On a survey of the field, they who 
walk by sight pronounce effort vain ; and desponding 
Christians, although they say less, will not do more. 
But one hopeful, loving heart will chase a thousand of 
these difficulties, as wind drives smoke, away. He who 



20 FAITH, HOPE, LOVE. 

trusts in Christ walks by faith ; and he who walks by 
faith will hope ; and he who hopes will love ; and he 
who loves will work ; and he who works will win — ^win 
the world to God. 

III. The superior magnitude of the last ; " The great- 
est of these is love." 

In two distinct aspects love is the greatest of all : in 
its work on earth, and its permanence in heaven. 

1. In its work on earth. It is the only one of the 
three that reaches other men, and directly acts upon them 
for their good. " Thy faith hath saved thee," Christian, 
but what can it do for thy brother ? It does not reach 
him. It is a secret in your own breast. Its power is 
great, but it is the power of a root, not of a branch. It 
operates by sustaining and stimulating other graces. 
Specifically and expressly " faith worketh by love." 

Hope, in like manner, begins and ends in the heart of 
a disciple. These two departments of the kingdom lie 
" within '' its loyal subjects. They send forth other mis- 
sionaries, but do not themselves go forth. Such is the 
nature of both faith and hope that they will not thrive 
if they are frequently exposed to view. Do not show 
me thy faith or thy hope ; but show me, by love's suffer- 
ing and doing, that both love's blessed constituents pros- 
per in your soul. The less that your hope, as such, pro- 
trudes itself on the notice of mankind the better for its 
own health ; but the more it swells within your breast, 
the more of love will it send forth to bless the world. 

On the contrary, it is the nature of love to come out. 
Unless it act, and act on others, it cannot be. Love 



FAITH, HOPE, LOVE. 21 

does not begin and end within the lover. Its essence is 
an outgoing. These three exercises of a human spirit 
have objects which they gTasp, each its own. Faith 
fastens on Christ, hope on heaven, but love on human- 
kind. It will not, cannot let the world alone. All the 
neighbours know it, feel it. Love is like Him who 
" went about doing good." 

Thus, in its actual contact with the world and time, 
love is the largest of the three. Love teaches the igno- 
rant, clothes the naked, feeds the hungry. Love reproves 
sin, withdraws temptation, leads back the wanderer to 
the path of righteousness. Love translates the Bible into 
every human tongue, and strives to introduce it into 
every human dwelling. " Love is the fulfilling of that 
law " which came latest from the Lord's own lips, " Go 
ye into all the world and preach the gospel unto every 
creature." Love, like the stone which Daniel saw cut 
out of the mountain without hands, is growing greater 
every day, and will continue to grow until it fill the 
whole earth. 

A tree stands in a lawn alone, and has stood there 
while three generations of its owners have successively 
been carried past it to the grave. It grows in a shel- 
tered spot, and in a generous soil. Having no neighbours 
near, it has occupied the ground with its own roots, and 
the air with its own branches. You observe the tree 
from a distance, and pronounce it a lovely object in the 
landscape ; but you see only the branches. It appears 
as one great symmetrical mass of green, globular or coni- 
cal, according to its kind, towering high into heaven 



22 FAITH, HOPE, LOVE. 

above, and beneath, leaning on the sward all round. It 
has, you know, a strong straight stem bearing, and a 
deep, wide-spread root, nourishing all these branches ; 
but the stem and the root are invisible. As you come 
nearer you may get glimpses of the stem, and by digging 
in the earth you may discover and expose the roots. 
But both of these are in position withdrawn from view, 
and in bulk diminutive. The root, the stem, the branch- 
ing top : these three constitute the tree, but the greatest 
of these, for beauty or for fruitfulness, — the greatest of 
these is the collective head of leafy, blossoming, fruit-pro- 
ducing branches. 

Precisely such an object on the broad field of Scrip- 
ture is the thirteenth chapter of the First Epistle to the 
Corinthians. At the bottom, living and life-giving, but 
small in dimensions, and almost concealed from view, you 
find faith and hope, the nourishing root and supporting 
stem ; but love springs up and spreads out on every side, 
and fills the observer's eye. Behold the multitudinous, 
miscellaneous, intertwined, and radiating branches ; how 
sweet-scented and fruitful each ; liow great and gorgeous 
the united whole ! " Love sufiereth long, and is kind ; 
love envieth not ; love vaunteth not itself, is not pufied 
up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, 
is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil ; rejoice th not in 
iniquity, but rejoicetti in the truth ; beareth all things, 
belie veth all things, hopeth all things, endure th all 
things."" 

2. In its permanence in heaven. Faith and hope are 
unspeakably precious to sinners ; but Id their present 



FAITH, HOPE, LOVE. 23 

form at least they are in their nature partial and tem- 
porary. If there had been no sin they would not have 
been needed ; and when sin has been completely removed 
they will be needed no more. It is true that on faith 
and hope grow all the love which constitutes the heaven 
of the redeemed ; but it is equally true that when love 
is perfect the faith and hope which bore it will disap- 
pear. 

On this side, the terrestrial image of the spiritual fact 
is found, not in the tree which flourishes as freshly as 
ever after the grandson of its planter has been gathered 
to his fathers in a good old age ; but in the feebler, yet 
tenfold more precious and necessary grain stalks which 
germinate, and fructify, and die, within the compass of a 
year. In spring and summer the tender roots and soft 
green stems of his field absorb all the care of the hus- 
bandman. His life is bound up in these, and he cherishes 
them accordingly. If these fail, all is lost. But in 
autumn, when the ripened grain is stored in safety, he 
sees, without regret, both roots and stems rotting into 
dust. Such, in relation to eternity, are the faith and 
hope which grow from the seed of the word in broken 
hearts during the preparatory season of time. When the 
love which they bear is fully ripe it will be stored to keep 
for ever, and they will be left behind. "Love never 
faileth : but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail ; 
whether there be tongues, they shall cease ; whether there 
be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, 
and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect 
is come, then that which is in part shall be done away." 



24 FAITH, HOPE, LOVE. 

Nor is there any cause for jealousy in this sisterhood 
of grace. To make love great — to make love greatest — 
does not make faith less. The more precious the ripened 
fruit is discovered to be the more value will be set upon 
the only root which bears it. Love is greatest ; and of 
that greatest thing none worthy of the name is owned by 
men in earth or in heaven, except that which has grown 
on faith. Does not this doctrine magnify the office of 
faith ? 

On the other hand, does any one comfort himself with 
the thought that he possesses faith, the one essential for 
a sinful creature, although he is, in point of fact, neglect- 
ing the labour which love both demands and supplies ; — 
what is his faith ? A root that bears nothing ; a stump. 
" What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he 
hath faith, and have not works? Can faith save him?" 
(James ii. 1 4). Faith, if it hath not the " works '' on 
which all true love ever toils, " is dead, being alone.'' 

Those who draw their life from Christ may well ex- 
pend their strength in his cause. " Rooted in him " (CoL 
ii. 7), they have access to all the fulness of the Godhead 
bodily: they might — they should be " fat and flourishing." 
Getting much through faith from the world's Saviour, 
they should do much by love for a sinful world. If the 
hidden root be living, the ripening fruit should be good 
and great. 



THE MEDIATOR BETWEEN GOD AND MAN. 25 

II. 

THE MEDIATOR BETWEEN GOD AND MAN. 

" righteous Father, the world hath not known thee ; but I have known thee, 
and these have known that thou hast sent me." — John xvii. 25. 

In the special exercises of the Sabbath, as compared with 
our ordinary occupation on other days, we labour at a great 
disadvantage, because of the comparative dimness of spiri- 
tual vision, and faintness of spiritual impressions. Sense 
rules in human life like a tyrsLiit, and oppresses spirit. 
It is yet another example of the strong crushing the 
weak. It is an unequal match, like that between the 
grown lad Ishmael and the yet infant Isaac. The right 
was with Sarah's son, but the might, as yet, lay with the 
athletic young Egyptian. The spiritual within us, even 
where it is alive, is like a feeble infant: the sensual 
treads it under foot, and mocks its helpless struggle. 
There is, indeed, an assured hope that the child of pro- 
mise, once born, will grow apace, and in his manhood 
both assert the right and wield the power; but the 
Church, in the meantime, has bitter cause to mourn that 
the things of the Spirit are faintly felt, and the things 
of the flesh lord it in the life of her members. 

On this account we are fain to set forth spiritual 
things in forms of sense. By means of a parable Nathan 
contrived to plunge his arrow deep in the conscience of 
the king, before old Adam in the transgressor was aware 



26 THE MEDIATOR BETWEEN GOD AND MAN. 

of danger, or ready for defence. Aiming here with all 
our weapons at the soul, we are fain, notwithstanding, 
to employ the body as a handle to direct our blow. 

In the march of humanity across the plain of time, 
the front ranks have reached the brink of a mighty river. 
We pause, and cluster on the bank, and wistfully gaze upon 
a happy, heaven-like shore beyond. A broad, dark, deep 
tide is rolling past. It is like a sea of wrath. There 
is no way over, and no safety here. Oh, wretched men 
that we are, who shall deliver us ? We are pursued ; we 
are ready to perish. On yonder heights the saved are 
singing the song of victory ; but a gulf impassable lies 
between ns and them. 

Lo, while we look, a rock rises in the midst of that 
gloomy stream, towering broad and high above its angry 
waves ! At mid-channel there is an island now. Next, 
see, between that island and the happy shore beyond, 
the gulf is securely bridged. The island and the heaven 
behind it have become one, and throngs of shining mes- 
sengers pass and repass between them. But, lo! as we 
look and long for that blessed place, which seems "in- 
accessible and full of glory," the island stretches hither- 
ward, and touches the shore on this side at our feet. A 
broad solid path from the mighty mid-stream rock abuts 
upon the bank where the tremblers stand; and now in 
thronging ranks they are marching over from death unto 
life; and now the foremost are mingling with the multi- 
tude already saved, where no enemy shall ever enter, and 
whence they shall go no more out. 

Now, if this were the actual state of the case, — if both 



THE MEDIATOK BETWEEN GOD AND MAN. 27 

the danger and the safety were of such material and 
palpable character, preaching would be easy work; or 
rather, preachers would be needed no more. That the 
way to life is open would be argument enough for all to 
flee. Mankind, with one consent, would turn and live; 
not one infatuated procrastinator would be left behind. 
Men will, of their own accord, and with all their might, 
flee from the death which they really dread, to the life 
which they really love. 

And yet all this is real, although it is not seen. The 
danger has been incurred, and we lie exposed to it; the 
deliverance has been wrought, and we are invited to 
accept it. The river of divine wrath flows between the- 
sinful and the holy home of the saved. We are the men 
who stand on the hither shore of that fathomless flood. 
Whether we slumber senseless or cry in agony, we can- 
not save ourselves. God's Son has come from heaven, 
and stood in the midst of that flood. He, in the midst 
Mediator, is one with the righteous Father beyond and 
rebellious children here. He is God's way to us — 
our way to God. There is salvation in Christ, and no 
salvation in any other. All this is, and on all this our 
eyes will open one day : would that our eyes were opened 
on it now, for " now is the accepted time, now is the day 
of salvation!" 

All this is declared here by the Lord's own lips. He 
proclaims — he is the way unto the Father. He speaks 
not here to us ; but he does a greater, a kinder thing. 
He speaks about us to the Father, and permits us to 
stand so near that we may overhear his words. The 



28 THE MEDIATOR BETWEEN GOD AND MAN. 

whole case of sinners, and for sinners, lies in this short 
sentence of the Mediator's prayer. It is arranged in two 
great natural divisions, together covering all the space 
and all the time wherewith the human race are concerned, 
thus, — 

I. The alienation of the whole world from God by- 
sin : " Righteous Father, the world hath not known 
thee." 

II. The reconciliation of some out of the world to God, 
through a Saviour: " But I have known thee, and these 
have known that thou hast sent me." 

I. The alienation of the whole world from God by 
sin : " Righteous Father, the world hath not known 
thee." 

In this solemn rehearsal of the judgment for our warn- 
ing before the time, the two parties are the same as they 
will be when the judgment itself is set, and the books 
opened, — ^the just God, and rebellious men. Speaking 
to the Father, the Mediator intimates that he is righteous ; 
speaking of the world, he intimates that it knows not 
God. 

1 . Righteous Father. Father is, indeed, an endearing 
name, but he is a dear child who employs it. He is in 
the bosom of the Father : him the Father heareth — loveth 
always. He who is Father to the obedient bears another 
relation to the rebellious. He is the world's maker, owner, 
witness, judge. 

Accordingly, the Mediator, in view of men's desert. 



THE MEDIATOR BETWEEN GOD AND MAN. 2d 

and in anticipation of his own vicarious suffering, while 
he enjoys the Father's love, makes mention of the Judge's 
lighteousness. There is a special reason why this, rather 
than any other divine attribute, is introduced. It is 
first and mainly in his righteousness that God has to do 
with sinners; that the sinners' substitute has to do with 
God. Deep cause had our Redeemer to cry, " Righteous 
Father," when he was approaching unto God for us. 
Righteousness is God's first requirement and our first 
need. For this the hypocrite toils, as he clothes his 
nakedness with filthy rags ; for this the humble hunger 
and thirst ; for this the law rages like the sea in a storm ; 
and this in divine perfection the Lord Jesus has wrought 
out, and brought in, and offered free. Appearing as the 
advocate and substitute of the guilty, our Lord Jesus 
owns that righteousness must be the rule of judgment, 
and consents to meet the demand. 

2. " The world liath not known thee.'' The world ! 
who and what are these? The whole human family. 
And what ails them? All evil things in one, — the}'' 
know not the righteous Father. The world was made 
for man, and man for God. The upper link gave way, 
and all that depended on it fell. Man rebelled, and 
carried away from its allegiance a subject w^orld. When 
the god of this world displayed all its kingdoms before 
the Man of Sorrows in the wilderness, a glory, winsome 
to human senses, glittered on their treasures and their 
armies, their sceptres and their crowns. But in the view 
of pure spirits, alike the one Supreme, and the myriads 
subordinate, they were only heaps of corrupting dead. 



80 THE MEDIATOR BETWEEN GOD AND MAN. 

Each nation followed its own form, but all departed from 
the living God. They worshipped wood and stone, 
beasts and birds, and creeping things. The worshipped 
being neither fatherly nor righteous, the worshippers were 
neither happy nor good. 

As oil cannot mix with water, the sinful do not, can- 
not love the holy. What you do not love, you either 
never begin, or soon cease to know. Because God is 
just, and the world unjust, the world, by the sure opera- 
tion of changeless laws, is ignorant of God. Our first 
parents, when sin was young, and sinful habits not yet 
hardened by frequent exercise, gave way to the evil 
instinct, but were simple as little children in their plan. 
They hid from the Lord God among the trees of the 
garden. The tendency was there: already the fool said 
in his heart, No God. But the art of hiding from the 
Holy w^as yet in its infancy. Uneasy guilt soon found 
out deeper coverings. In a few generations men had 
succeeded in placing a thicker shade between their own 
consciences and the face of God. A false worship and a 
wicked life, woof and warp of the intervening veil, were 
woven and waulked into each other, until no painful ray 
of holy light from heaven could penetrate to disturb the 
world, lying asleep in its sin. " Darkness covered the 
earth, and thick darkness the people." 

But if the righteous God should come to these rebels 
and close with them in their hiding-place, willing or not 
vrilling, they would be compelled to know Him.. Yes, as 
the lost know him when the day of grace is done. While 
Israel, his own, to whom he came, were tempting Jesus 



THE MEDIATOR BETWEEN GOD AND MAN. 31 

with the cruel taunt, " Tell us who thou art," the devil, 
from a deeper knowledge, was uttering the confession, 
true, though not trustful, " I know thee who thou art, 
the Holy One of God/' 

It is of God's mercy that the world, as yet, do not 
so know God. " Our God is a consuming fire,'' and 
therefore it is well that he hideth himself awhile from 
the withered thorns. " Without God in the world," is 
a specific characteristic of the unrenewed; but beyond 
this world, every eye shall see him. 

Such, apart from the Mediator, is the condition, and 
such the doom of men ; — in this world, ignorance of 
God, caused by dislike of his holiness; in the world to 
come, knowledge of God, obtained by experiencing his 
wrath against sin. Such inevitably would have been 
the course and end of all, if Christ had not, in the cove- 
nant of mercy, come to us; such actually will be the 
course and end of every one still wdio does not in the 
day of mercy come to Christ. It is a foolish thing to 
remain willingly ignorant of the living God through life, 
and a fearful thing to fall, at death, into his hands. 

II. The reconciliation of some out of the world to God 
through a Saviour : " But I have known thee, and these 
have known that thou hast sent me." 

In the first portion of the text there are only two 
parties ; in the second portion there are three. There you 
behold on one side the righteous Father, on the other side 
a fallen world, with the chasm of enmity between. Here 
you behold on one side the same righteous Father, ou 



82 THE MEDIATOR BETWEEN GOD AND MAN. 

the other all the ransomed Church, with Jesus in the 
midst, Mediator, laying his hand upon both. The parties 
are — (1.) Righteous Father; (2.) I; (3.) These. In two 
features the second scene is different from the first. In that 
clause which tells who do not know God, it is the whole 
world ; in this clause which tells who do know him, it 
is only a portion of the world — " these," the disciples of 
Jesus. Further, while in both clauses alike, God and men 
occupy the two extremes, in the second " one like unto 
the Son of God" is seen standing between them. 

" Righteous Father, the world hath not known thee, but 
I have known thee." They have not known thee : there 
is the gate of heaven shut : the little word " hut" be- 
comes the hinge on which it opens, and as it opens we see 
Jesus " the way unto the Father." This is the very key- 
note of the Scriptures ; when men and all their efforts are 
conclusively shut up in sin and unto wrath, then Christ 
appears, alone undertaking redemption, alone finishing 
the work. Not the world, hut J, might be made the 
motto of the gospel, whether you have respect to the ful- 
filment of the law, or the expiation of sin ; to the work 
accomplished, or the price paid. 

Who shall teU how much is contained in the short ex- 
pression, "I have known thee?" It is a great deep. 
Two ways of knowing God are possible to creatures. The 
holy know him by tasting his love, and the unholy by 
bearing his anger. Both the classes who do know him, 
and both alike, know him righteous. In which of these 
two ways does the Lord Jesus know the Father? In 
both. As the well -beloved of the Father, Jesus knows 



THE MEDIATOE BETWEEN GOD AND MAN. 83 

liim by lying in his bosom ; as our substitute, he knows 
him by bearing the wrath clue to sin. 

It must be in this second sense mainly that the inter- 
cessor in our text speaks of knowing the Father, for he 
stands here specifically as the daysman. " Who know- 
eth the power of thine anger?" only Jesus ; for he has 
felt it all: with the lost it is not yet all over, and on the 
saved it will never come. When men fell, and the curse 
followed ; when the covenant was framed, and all that 
the guilty deserved was laid to the account of the surety; 
when in Gethsemane his prayer for a less bitter cup was 
rejected, and the agony of his soul supernaturally rent 
the interior vessels of his body, so that the life-blood 
flowed from the pores; when the soldiers mocked, and the 
multitude reviled him ; when the Jewish priests accused, 
and the Roman ruler condemned him, for owning that he 
was the Son of God ; when, dying on the cross, he was 
forsaken both by God whom he served, and men for 
whom he suffered, — the Son knew the Father, — knew 
him righteous to punish sin, that we might know him 
merciful to pardon it. 

What next ? We read, '' The world have not know 
thee ; but I have ;" and will the next clause be, There- 
fore the world shall never need to know God as the 
judge and the avenger ? No. As long the text speaks 
of the departure, the word is the World ; as soon as it 
begins to tell of the return, the word is These. All go 
away from God by wicked works ; but all do not come 
back through faith in a mediator. As to the alienation, 
" there is none righteous, no. not one ;" as to the recon- 



34 THE MEDIATOR BETWEEN GOD AND MAN. 

ciling, although the new and living way is open, " few 
there be that find it." 

But while in faithfulness we fix attention on the fact, 
that fewer return than went away, we must beware of 
limiting the number of true disciples more than the mas- 
ter meant. By " these" he intended to designate not 
only the little band of Galileans who stood within hear- 
ing while he interceded with the Father, but also all in 
every land and every age who should receive in faith the 
word of these earliest witnesses. In express and empha- 
tic terms within the compass of this same prayer (ver. 20.) 
he has made it known and left it on record, that in the 
crisis of his sa\dng work his watchful eye and compas- 
sionate heart were fixed alike on all his people, out to the 
furthest bounds of the earth and down to the latest periods 
of time. 

Our Saviour is God. The divinity of Christ is a most 
precious practical truth. It is sweet in our extremities 
to kno.w that our Friend, our Brother, is omnipotent and 
omniscient. He who keeps the stars in their places, and 
knov/s the numbers of the sands, will keep the seed of 
Abraham, although they multiply beyond the Limits of the 
promise, neither missing one in the multitude nor grow- 
ing weary under the weight of all. The first Napoleon, 
according to the history which seems authentic, was, at a 
crisis of the war in Syria, embarrassed with some thou- 
sands of prisoners whom he was unable to retain and 
unwilling to restore. He cut the knot by killing them 
alL Out of this eater may come forth meat, if the hor- 
rid tale, making you shudder in every nex've, throw you 



THE MEDIATOR BETWEEN GOD AND MAN. 35 

over for relief from all finite principalities and powers, to 
that " God over all, blessed for ever/' who saves to the 
uttermost of the numbers that come and the uttermost 
of the necessities of each — who has room in his home 
and in his heart for all the captives that may be taken 
from the god of this world, although they come like the 
dew" of the morning. Oh, how far flashed the eye of 
Emmanuel, how widely spread his love, when he pointed 
to the little group of fishermen on the hill-side, and said, 
" Father, these have known that thou hast sent me ! " 
Have you felt these " bands of a man'' falling on you, 
brother, and do you yield to their gentle heavenward 
drawing ? 

*' These" were no more able than the world was to 
meet and know for themselves a righteous God. The con- 
trast does not consist in the short, blunt antithesis that the 
world do not know God, but these do. The saved know 
God indeed ; but they know him in the Mediator. Christ 
is able to save to the uttermost all that come unto God 
through him. Like David (Ps. xliii.) they come to the 
altar, and approaching God thus, they find him to be, 
not a terror, but an " exceeding joy/' 

It is not only the knowledge of Jesus, it is the know- 
ledge of him as the messenger of the covenant, in the 
dignity of his person and the completeness of his work : 
" Tliese have known that thou hast sent me." To know 
and accept the Mediate, r whom God has sent, as God has 
sent him, is life eternal. He that hath seen me hath 
seen the Father. The sending of his Son to save sinners 
is the act and aspect of the Father, whereby sinners are 



36 THE MEDIATOR BETWEEN GOD AND MAN. 

subdued and won : " No man cometh unto me, except the 
Father which hath sent me draw him/' 

The sending is divine love embodied, which constrains 
me to come ; when I come, I come in faith to the Sent ; 
and tlirough him I stand accepted before the Sender. 

On either side, at extremest distance, and in deepest 
alienation, stand God and the world. Forth from God 
on the one side, towards the world, comes Christ the 
Mediator ; from the world on the other side, drawn by 
manifested mercy, these come to Christ. All are lost by 
sin ; of the lost, those who come to Christ are saved. 

These ! Ay, but they are the apostles and evangel- 
ists, and saints and martyrs — the great and good of other 
days — they may come and be accepted ; but what conso- 
lation lies there for us, who have no such character and 
no such claim ? 

You grievously misread the record ; look again to the 
list of names that are wiitten in the Lamb's book of 
life. Matthew the publican is there ; James and John 
are there, who meanly sought to steal a march upon 
absent brethren, and get, by dint of early application, the 
foremost place in heaven ; Peter is there, not with, but 
after all his denials and curses ; Saul of Tarsus is there, 
with no stain of Stephen's blood now on his garments ; 
the crucified thief is there ; and time would fail to tell 
the numbers or kinds of chief sinners who are there, 
forgiven, and renewed, and accepted in the Beloved. 

See these pure white clouds that stretch, in ranks like 
rolling waves, across the canopy of heaven in the still, 
deep noon of a summer day. Row after row they lie 



THE MEDIATOK BETWEEN GOD AND MAN. 37 

in the light, opening their bosoms to the blaze of a 
noonday sun ; and they are all fair : they are " with- 
out spot, or wrinkle, or any such, thing/' Who are these 
that stand, as it were, around the throne of God, in white 
clothing ; and whence came they ? These are they that 
have come from various places on the surface of the 
earth and sea. Some have come from the briny ocean, 
and some from miry land ; some from yellow, overflowing 
rivers, and some from cool crystal springs ; some from 
stagnant pools in lonely deserts, and some from the slimy 
bed of the Thames or the Clyde, when living creatures 
can scarcely breathe upon their banks. All are alike wel- 
come to these heavens, and all in their resurrection state 
equally pure. 

May I, spiritually distant and unclean — may I rise, 
like these snow-white clouds, from earth to heaven, and 
take my place without challenge among the stainless 
witnesses who stand round the Redeemer's throne ? I 
may, — not because my stains are few ; but because 
the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanseth from all 
sin. I may — not because my sins are small^ but be- 
cause my Saviour is great. 



^ 



38 THE LAMENTATIONS OF JESUS. 

III. 

THE LAMENTATIONS OF JESUS. 

" Ye will not come tome that ye might have life." — John v. 40. 

The Messenger of the covenant speaks. Our eternal 
interests hang on his lips. How intently should sinners 
listen to the Saviour's words! "Gather up the fragments 
that none of them be lost." 

Some of his words are commands, and some are 
warnings; some are promises, and some threatenings ; 
in some he expresses approval, and in others he utters a 
complaint. Out of that one loving hea.rt proceed many 
thoughts embodied for our profit in human speech. The 
new man lives by every word that proceedeth out of the 
mouth of God. Each is best in its time and place. None 
of them could be wanted in the fuU provision of our 
Father's house. 

The word of Jesus which we have chosen as our theme 
to-day is a COMPLAINT. 

It would be an interesting and instructive exercise to 
gather from the Scriptures the complaints which were 
uttered by the Man of Sorrows in the course of his per- 
sonal ministry, or by prophets and apostles in his name. 
We possess the Lamentations of Jeremiah; I would 
like to see in one view the Lamentations of his Lord. 

In some points of view they are at once the grandest 
and sweetest of his words. Taken in connection with his 



THE LAMENTATIONS OF JESUS. 39 

person and his power, they distinguish him as "the 
Wonderful, the Counsellor." A command befits the dig- 
nity of the Supreme; a threat sounds seemly on the 
Judge's lips when criminals stand convicted at his bar; 
promises flow so naturally from the Shepherd of Israel, 
that they are counted on as things of course. All these 
words, as soon as we learn who the speaker is, we expect 
to hear; but the tender complaint takes us by surprise. 
It brings Emmanuel closer to us than his other words. It 
is not after the manner of men. Having the right and 
the power to punish, he pleads. When we need him, he 
speaks as if he needed us. Getting the homage of all 
unfallen creatures, he follows the fallen, beseeching them 
to be reconciled : "Ye will not come to me that ye might 
have life." What a word is this! There is fire in it 
sufficient to melt a nether millstone heart, and make it 
flow down like water. 

I shall submit a series of observations, all logically 
based on the text, and tending, cumulatively, at once to 
open its meaning and apply its power. 

I. Men, before regeneration, and apart from the sal- 
vation of God, are in a state which Jesus counts and 
calls death. In this plaint of the Saviour the true con- 
dition of sinners is seen with awful distinctness. No room 
is left here for dispute or mistake. The speaker knows 
what is in man, and what is, consequently, before him. 
In the bosom of the Father Jesus knows the mind of God. 
He sees the end from the beginning. On the foreground 
of time he declares that death is men's character ; with 



40 THE LAI^IENTATIONS OF JESUS. 

his eye on eternity he pronounces that death will be their 
doom. If we remain to the last where we are found at 
first, we shall be lost for ever. 

This estimate of man's state and prospects which the 
Redeemer has formed and recorded, is of vital importance at 
the -very threshold of religious knowledge and experience. 
Theoretically to deny, or practically to neglect it is to 
make him a liar, and accuse him of coming to the world 
on a needless errand, — wasting divine compassion in vain. 
If you do not accept his view of your own loss, you cannot 
possibly close with his offer of deliverance. If you begin 
by disbelieving his word, how can you end by confiding in 
his mercy ? If you think the physician has not taken up 
the disease, how can you trust in his skill to cure it? 
It is death : down in the bottom of that deep, dark pit, 
must the foundation of our hope be laid. 

Hear, O earth! for the Lord hath spoken. He who is 
the way is also the truth. Speaking of the condition 
which is common to aU men, he calls it death. His word, 
spoken to Nicodemus as a sample of fallen humanity, has 
been recorded for our use : " Except a man be born again, 
he cannot see the kingdom of God." 

II. In order to pass from death unto life, it is neces- 
sary to ccmie to Jesus. "I am the way,'' he has said; 
"No man cometh unto the Father but by me;" "He 
that hath the Son hath life. He that hath not the Son 
shall not see life ; but the wrath of God abideth on him." 

Observe, on our part it is not a word but an act. 
Suppose you were standing aloft on a platform that has 



THE LAMENTATIONS OF JESUS. 41 

been undermined beneath, and must fall within an hour. 
Suppose, further, that one who cares for you, and knows 
the frailty of your footing, should warn you of the 
danger, and point out the place of safety. You believe 
that the information is correct, thank your informant, 
and resolve to take his advice ; but you linger, forget, 
and fall asleep on the spot. You fall and perish, although 
you were warned, and understood the warning, and be- 
lieved the Warner's word. Because you did not flee from 
the danger, it overtook and overwhelmed you; because 
you did not go to the place of safety, you were not saved. 
A ministering angel looking on, with no hand of flesh to 
touch the sleeper, and no human voice wherewith to pene- 
trate his ear, might weep for the falling, but his tears 
could not arrest the fall. 

A dead-letter knowledge, destitute of moving power, 
pervades and paralyses the Church. Oh, for the prodigal's 
sense of need, and the prodigal's simple, earnest, honest 
resolving ! Having said, " I will arise and go to my 
father," forthwith he arose and went. 

Beware lest you lose your way in the mist which some- 
times gathers round the expression, "Come to me." A 
spiritual coming is as real in its nature, and as influential 
in its eflects, as any bodily coming can be. In the experience 
of life we all pass over frequently from one view and one 
confidence to another. When our fond expectations have on 
one side been bitterly disappointed, we let go the broken 
reed, and, perhaps^ cast it away with loathing from our 
pierced and bleeding hands. Thereafter, it may be, hope 
beams forth from the opposite direction Uke dawn in the 



42 THE LAMENTATIONS OF JESUS. 

east. The soul's inward trust is transferred to a new 
object, and, as a consequence, the life course is reversed, as 
if a river by some convulsion of nature were made to flow 
backward in its bed. We come in spirit from one con- 
fidence to another, as really and as potentially as we come 
in body from one place to another. Nor is this a rare 
experience. It occurs to all, and it occurs often to each. 

It may stiU remain true, in point of fact, that those 
have no distinct conception of what coming to Christ 
means, who have not themselves come to Christ. This 
ignorance, however, will not palliate the guilt, and, con- 
sequently, cannot modify the sentence of unbelievers. 
Every one of them has repeatedly, in his own experience, 
lost confidence in one person or thing, and come over to 
another. Out of their own lips, out of their own life, will 
they be condemned. It is not an incapacity to understand 
any such change ; it is an unwillbigness to make this one. 

It is not hearing or echoing the cry, "Come unto me,'' 
that will save the lost. The lost must wrench themselves 
away from a whole legion of possessing spirits, and come 
to Jesus as simply, and as reaUy, as the cured demoniac 
came to sit at his feet. To put off* the old man, and put 
on Christ, is as real as to put ofi" garments that are filthy 
and put on garments that are clean, and as great in its 
results as to put ofi* this mortal and put on immortality. 

III. In order to life, nothing more is needed than to 
come to Jesus. 

No preliminary qualification is demanded. No selection 
of persons according to their merits is made. None are 



THE LAMENTATIONS OF JESUS. 43 

excluded for the presence of one quality or the absence of 
another. To the dead one thing only is essential—that 
they should come to Christ. 

Neither before conversion nor after it is any other 
thing necessary to life. It is, indeed, true that faith will 
not justify if it be found alone; but that is because if it 
abide alone, it is not faith. It is dead, and its deadness 
is known by its barrenness. All the living bear fruit; 
but it is their life that makes them fruitful, not their 
fruitfulness that begets their life. 

To go conclusively off from self and all other confidences, 
and cleave to the Son of God as all your salvation, 
is all that is necessary to life. "He that hath the 
Son hath life/' It is not that the fruitful branch will 
get into the vine; but the branch which is in the vine 
will be fruitful. 

The effects which the change produces have not pro- 
duced the change. One of faith's fruits, for example, is 
brotherly love. Hereby we know that we have passed 
from death unto life, because we love the brethren. Here 
is fruit, which, by its ripeness and sweetness, proves that 
the tree has been made good; but the fruit-bearing had 
no place as a cause in changing the character of the tree. 
All labour to induce good fruit to grow on a bad tree, in 
order thereby to make the tree good, is labour lost. 
Make the tree good; then and therefore will its fruit be 
good. 

It is not the coming to Jesus, and a better obedience, 
that together will bring life to the dead. Coming to 
Jesus is, itself alone, life from the dead, and a new 



X 



44 THE LAMENTATIONS OF JESUS. 

obedience through the ministiy of the Spirit springs natu- 
rally from newness of life. This Physician knows both 
the malady and the cure. When he undertakes to tell 
what lies betv/een the dead in sin and life eternal, he 
names one thing only, "Ye will not come to me/' If more 
were needful, this witness would not be true. The labour 
of the legalist to eke out his claim makes Christ's word 
false, and therefore is more heinous than other sins. 

IV. Those who are spiritually dead are not willing 
to come to Christ for life. 

This seems strange. Even the Lord himself wondered 
at their unbelief It is the very mystery of iniquity, that 
man's resistance to the divine proposal is great in pro- 
portion to the easiness of its terms. 

The human nature of the question is graphically repre- 
sented in the history of Naaman the leprous Syrian 
soldier. If much had been required, he would have done 
much; but to wash in Jordan was so easy to do, that he 
would not do it. Even in his case, however, there was 
something deeper than the pet of a spoiled child. That 
easy act was, from his view-point, one of the hardest 
sacrifices that could have been exacted. It did not require 
the removal of a mountain, but it required the crushing 
of national pride in the most painful manner, and at the 
most sensitive point. Abana and Pharpar, rivers of 
Damascus, were then, as now, accounted by the Syrians 
the sweetest, and freshest, and most sanitary that flowed 
upon the earth. To abandon these as worthless, and 
wash for healing in the Jordan, the despised stream of a 



THE LAJVIEKTATIONS OF JESUS. 45 

despised people, — this was to crucify the flesh. It was to 
honour what he contenined, and trample in the dust 
what he honoured. 

These things, although a portion of actual history, are 
an allegory in their design and use. The leper, divinely 
instructed to leave his native streams, in which he gloried, 
and wash for healing in the Jordan, which he despised, 
represents a sinner instructed to turn away from all his 
own appliances, and come for cleansing to the fountain 
opened in the house of David. In the proud answer of 
the heathen, when he spurned away the humiliating pro- 
posal, you may see reflected the inborn self-righteousness 
of the fallen, and their unwillingness to submit to the 
righteousness of Christ. Most men would do many diffi- 
cult things, and do them gladly, for the sake of what they 
caU heaven ; but they are unwilling to do the one easy 
thing which God requires. Those Jews to whom these 
words were at first addressed, came to the Scriptures 
thinking that thereby they would obtain eternal life. 
They were willing to toil through their task of so many 
chapters every day, and all their days : they would wear 
pieces of the Scriptures written on parchment bound on 
their brows, and wrapped round their bodies ; but, while 
they superstitiously manipulated the Scriptures, they 
refused the Christ whom the Scriptures proclaim. The 
letter of the word became to them like the husks that 
once held the wheat after the wheat had dropped out 
ripe. These husks are not bread : there is no life in 
them. That life is in God's Son. 

The want lies in the will. The great Physician points 



46 THE LAMENTATIONS OF JESUS. 

to the seat of the disease. The sick should profit by his 
kindness and skill. Some malady which you do not 
understand troubles and alarms you. The physician is 
called. Thinking that the illness proceeds from a certain 
inflammatory process on a portion of your skin, you 
anxiously direct his attention to the spot. Silently, but 
sympathizingly, he looks at the place where you have 
bidden him look, and because you have bidden him look 
there, but soon he turns away. He is busy with an 
instrument on another part of your body. He presses 
his trumpet-tube gently to your breast, and listens for the 
pulsations which faintly but distinctly pass through. He 
looks and listens there, and saddens as he looks. You 
again direct his attention to the cutaneous eruption which 
annoys you. He sighs, and sits silent. When you 
reiterate your request that something should be done for 
the external eruption, he gently shakes his head and 
answers not a word. From this silence you would learn 
the truth at last. You would not miss its meaning long. 
Oh, miss not the meaning of the Lord, when he points 
to the seat of the soul's disease : " Ye will not come." 
These, his enemies, dwell in your heart. He stands at 
the door and knocks. If he enter, these must be driven 
out. Well, the change would be deliverance now and 
salvation for ever. What hinders? Only this — "Ye will 
not." This is the key of the position. Around this spot 
the battle chiefly rages all through the battle-day. There 
the strong man armed most successfully holds his own. 
If that position is ever won, it yields only to Omnipotence: 
" Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power/' 



THE LAMENTATIONS OF JESUS. 47 

V. Jesus complains that tliey will not come to him 
for life. It follows from this, as clear and sure as the 
reflection of your face in a mirror, that he delights to 
give, to be, eternal life to the lost. 

Here the Saviour opens his heart, that we may look 
in and see the love that fills it. I know not any scrip- 
ture whence the compassion of Emmanuel more freely 
flows. This plaint, when interpreted aright, is more con- 
soling than any promise — more solemnizing than any 
terror. When Jesus tells us what grieves him, we learn 
with certainty what would make him glad. The infer- 
ence is infallible. No truth can be more plain or more 
sure than this, that the flight of sinners to himself for 
life is the chief delight of God our Saviour. 

His love to us is wonderful, passing the love of mothers. 
When the sick child turns away with loathing from the 
mother's breast, the mother grieves. It was her delight 
to feel the little one lying on her breast, and drawing its 
life from hers. To feel life flowing from herself into her 
babe constituted the keenest enjoyment which her nature 
could bear. When that flow ceases through the want of 
drawing, the giver grieves more than the receiver. In 
these deep things of nature, whether the old or the new, 
" it is more blessed to give than to receive.'^ Accord- 
ingly, when the stoppage occurs, the giver wails ; the 
getter only is silent. The giver bears both sorrows. He 
grieves for the death of the dead, and for the loss of his 
own life-giving. As He was glad when a woman in the 
crowd so touched him as to get life thereby, he is grieved 
when the crowd gaze idly on and get nothing. The grief 



48 THE LAMENTATIONS OF JESUS. 

is double, and tlie gladness too. He bears, or enjoys, 
both his own and theirs. 

Speaking, immediately before his departure, to those 
who fondly clustered round him, new born, or coming to 
the birth, he said, " I go to prepare a place for you/' 
All his delight is in being life and giving life to those 
who once were dead in sin. Observe how a mother pre- 
pares for her child. With unwearying pains she makes 
all things ready ; and great is her grief if the preparation 
has been in vain — if the grave receive the infant from 
the womb, and the prepared cradle lie empty in her sight. 
Who can take the measure of that mother's sadness when 
she feels the babe's nourishment gathering in her breast, 
and knows that there are no living lips to draw it forth ! 

So grieves a more loving heart than hers, when the 
perishing heed not his call, and leave his provided mercy 
to lie waste. Hear ye him : " Ye will not come to me, 
that ye might have hfe." He weeps for those who will 
not weep for themselves, and because they will not weep 
for themselves. 

The upper side of rehgion is not a sentiment, but a 
fact ; such al«o must its under side be. The one is 
Christ's coming into the world to die for us ; the other is 
our coming to Christ to live in him. T^e work of re- 
demption has been done, once for all, and the story of 
the fact is the gospel The Son of God took our nature. 
He lived, and died, and rose again, in a land to which 
one of us could travel in a few weeks. He bare sin not 
liis own. He assumed his people's guilt, and offered for 
it a sacrifice that satisfies divine justice, and washes it 



THE LAMENTATIONS OF JESUS. 49 

all away. He ever lives in heaven to make intercession 
for those whom he bought with his blood on earth. This 
act, overshadowing all others, fills up time and eternity. 
It is an act done, and the Bible is its history. But the 
lower and lesser side must be equally an act in the expe- 
rience of every sinner saved. Mercy let down from 
heaven must be grasped by the needy on the earth while 
it is within their reach. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, 
and thou shalt be saved. Brother, the plain doctrine of 
the Bible is, if you do not come to Christ, you miss the 
profit of getting life, and he misses the pleasure of giving 
it. When you neglect this great salvation, you mar the 
Saviour's joy. On his side, which is all a giving, the 
work is finished ; on your side, which is simply a receiv- 
ing, it languishes. So far from grudging to bestow pardon 
and eternal life. He who has them at his disposal stands 
here to-day ('' Lo, I am with you always") complaining 
that you will not receive them at his hands. 

I was called lately to visit a young mother in deep dis- 
tress. Her husband, who had been in confidential employ- 
ment, had appropriated a large sum of money as it passed 
through his hands, and absconded. That weeping wife, 
with an infant on her knee and another at her foot, said, 
as she pointed to the window, " I sat at that window and 
looked for him until these men came back to their work 
in the morning." A great longing lay in one little human 
heart that night. A greater fills the heart of God our 
Saviour, as he waits for sinners, and complains that few 
are coming. 

Jesus, mediator between God and man, suffers two 



50 THE LAMENTATIONS OF JESUS. 

desertions, and utters two complaints. On that side, God 
forsook him ; and on this side, man. The answer to the 
first desertion, " My God, my God, why hast thou for- 
saken me V came in a strong cry from his dying lips; the 
answer to the second is written here, " Ye will not come 
to me that ye might have life." The desertion by the 
Father in the utmost agony of the Son, was the greater 
— was inconceivably, infinitely great ; but the lower and 
lesser — the desertion by sinners whom he seeks that he 
may save — pierces his heart more painfully, because the 
last desertion makes the first for that case of no avail. 
When we come to him for life, he sees, he tastes of the 
travail of his soul and is satisfied : when we refuse, he 
complains that so far his soul has travailed in vain. The 
disciples were glad when they saw the Lord, " risen from 
the dead:" the Lord is gladder when he sees disciples 
coming to himself, as doves to their windows. 



THE NATURE AND SOUECE OF TEUE PHILANTHEOPY. ol 



lY. 



THE NATURE AND SOURCE OF TRUE 
PHILANTHROPY. 

" And let us consider one another, to provoke unto love, and to good works." — 
Heb. X. 24. 

We may wind off this coil best by grasping the line at 
its outer extremity, and working our way inward to the 
heart. Or, we may explore this river best by entering 
its mouth from the sea, and threading our way upward 
till we reach its source. We begin our examination of 
the text, then, not at the beginning, but at the end. 

I. "Works." Work is the condition of life in the world. 
The law of both kingdoms alike is, " If any man will not 
work neither should he eat/' Work has been made a 
necessity in the constitution of nature, and declared a 
duty in the positive precepts of Scripture. Idleness is 
both sin and misery. In the authoritative and necessary 
alternation of work and rest, whether the regulating law 
is fixed in creation or written in the Bible, God has 
wisely and kindly accommodated his ordinances to the 
condition of his creatures. The week's labour makes the 
Sabbath welcome ; the Sabbath fits the labourer for the 
exertion of the week. The varied activity of the day 
makes the weary hail with gladness the approaching 

# 



52 THE NATURE AND SOURCE 

night ; silent night restores the waste, and sends forth a 
new man to the work of a new day. These terrestrial 
circles are as wise in their plan, and as sweet in their 
movements as the heavenly spheres. 

Work seems the law of the universe. Witness the 
ceaseless race of the heavenly bodies. Witness these un- 
wearied burden-bearers hastening along over our heads, 
carrying water to refresh a world, and pouring it out on 
the central ridges of continents, that it may supply every 
portion of the land on its way back to the sea. Witness 
the rivers how they flow onward night and day, sum- 
mer and winter, rejoicing to run their race. Witness the 
flowers, how they struggle through the earth in early 
spring, and hasten to unfold their blossoms, and after 
that to ripen their seed, that it may be filled and fit for 
sowing ere the winter come. When you ascend to animate 
nature, you find a still more articulate activity, — 

" How doth the little busy bee 
Improve each shining hour! " 

Everything is working. A non-productive class is an 
anomaly in creation. 

When a sinner is saved — when a man becomes a new 
creature in Christ, he is not set free from this comprehen- 
sive law. The Lord has a work of righteousness on hand, 
and the disciple yields himself a willing instrument. His 
heart is more hopeful now, and his hand more skilful. 
More honourable work is prescribed, and better wages 
wait him. The prodigal had his hands fuU, no doubt, 
and his day all occupied, when, in the strange and famine - 
stricken land, the double task was laid upon him of 



OF TRUE PHILANTHROPY. 53 

finding husks in the field both for himself and for his 
master's swine. When he returned to his father's house, 
his life was happier, but not idler. He had cleaner work 
and better pay, but he was obliged to work : love obliged 
him. The elder brother, we incidentally learn, was in his 
father's fields that day: the younger, we may be assured, 
was there too the next. 

The sowing, and the planting, and the grafting, and 
the fencing, and the watering, — all is done with a view to 
fruifc. The cumberer of the ground is condemned to be 
cast out. "Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much 
fruit." 

Christ was a worker. He went about doing. *' Wist 
ye not that I must be about my Father's business ? My 
Father worketh hitherto, and I work," 

Christ was a worker, and Christians are like him. The 
world is a field. It must be subdued and made the 
garden of the Lord. Son, daughter, " go work TO-DAY 
in my vineyard." 

Fix it, then, firmly in your minds as a practical rule 
of life for all, that if you have tasted the mercies of God, 
you must — you will give yourselves to him as willing 
sacrifices. If you are bought with a price, you must- — you 
wiU serve the Lord that bought you. To serve is the 
calling of all Christians, with all their talents, all their 
days. The Lord requires it, and will give no exemption; 
the disciple loves it, and will ask none. 

II. ''Good works." It is not any work that will please 
God, or be profitable to men. A bustling life will not 



54 THE NATUEE AND SOURCE 

make heaven sure. Here is a group of workmen claim- 
ing their reward : " Lord, have we not prophesied in thy 
name? and in thy name cast out devils? and in thy name 
done many wonderful works?" So far their plea; now 
its answer : " I never knew you ; depart from me, ye 
workers." Idleness was not their sin ; they came to 
heaven's gate with a back-load of works, but in the estimate 
of the Judge they were not '^ good works : " " Depart, ye 
workers of iniquity.*' 

The works must be good in design and character. The 
motive must be pure, and the effect beneficent. 

But does not the gospel decry good works ? Is it not 
the distinguishing mark of an evangelical preacher, that 
he runs them down as worthless? We have much need 
to make our conceptions clear on this point, and keep 
them clear. Practically, a disastrous confusion of ideas 
prevails here. Two things, similar in sound, but essen- 
tially diverse in character, are confounded. You make a 
grand mistake if, because you are warned not to trust in 
good works, you grow less diligent in doing them. If a 
skilful architect, observing you expending your summer 
days, and your manhood's strength, in an effort to build 
a house upon the sand, should benevolently warn you 
that the labour would be labour lost, you would poorly 
profit by his counsel, if you should, simply desist from the 
work, and loiter idle near the spot. The architect, your 
friend, did iiot object to the expenditure of your time 
and strength in building ; but he saw that the higher 
your wall should rise on that foundation, the more cer- 
tain and more destructive would be its fall. He meant 



OF TRUE PHILANTHROPY. 55 

that you sliould find the solid rocl^, and build there, — 
build with aJl your miglit. The gospel rejects good 
works, not as the fruit of faith, but as the meritorious 
ground of hope before God, The place of man's works 
in the Christian system decisively affects their natura 
Although in form they may be good, if they are made 
the foundation of the doer's hope, they are dead, and 
therefore loathsome to the living. They are the offerings 
which guilt makes under the pressure of fear to the God 
whom the conscience dislikes because of his holiness. 
Those who work thus are workers of iniquity, although 
they give all their goods to feed th6 poor, and their 
bodies to be burned to boot. But when we labour to 
keep good works out of the wrong place, we do not 
disparage them in the right place. Beneath a sinner 
as the material of his confidence, they are not only 
useless but ruinous ; in the life of a believer they are 
natural and necessary. Life does not spring from them; 
but they spring from life. As ciphers, added one by one 
in an endless row to the left hand of a unit are of no 
value, but on the right hand rapidly multiply its power, 
so although good works are of no avail to make a man a 
Christian, yet a Christian s good works are both pleasing 
to God and profitable to men. 

Good works rendered by Christians to Christ, put 
forth upon a needy world, are not dangerous thinga 
Christians should be not jealous, but zealous of good 
v/orks. The Lord requires them ; disciples render them ; 
the world needs them. What would the world be if it 
wanted the few tliat are agoinoj ? Almost a hell. What 



56 THE NATURE AND SOURCE 

would tlie world be if all its people should spend all 
their energies in doing them ? Almost a heaven. 
Ascend now another step in our inquiry. 

III. ''Love and good works." Verily good works 
constitute a refreshing stream in this world, wherever 
they are found flowing. It is a pity that they are too 
often like Oriental torrents, "waters that fail" in the 
time of greatest need. When we meet the stream actually 
flowing and refreshing the land, we trace it upward in 
order to discover the fountain whence it springs. Thread- 
ing our way upward, guided by the river, we have found 
at length the placid lake from which the river runs. 
Behind all genuine good works and above them, love 
will sooner or later certainly be found. It is never good 
works alone; uniformly in fact, and necessarily in the 
nature of things, we find the two constituents existing 
as a complex whole, " love and good works," — the foun- 
tain and the flowing stream. 

The love is manifestly in this case human in all its 
exercise. It is love from man to man. Like the water, 
it flows visibly out of the ground in the fountain, and 
along the ground in the river's bed; but like the water, 
it comes secretly at first all from heaven. The unin- 
structed, seeing it bubbling up from the bottom, can 
trace it nr> further, and think that the bowels of the 
earth are the primal source of the spring ; but science has 
made it plain, that the water which overflows there from 
subterranean cavities has descended all from the skies. 
In like manner, whatever of real love dwells in a human 



OF TRUE PHILANTHEOPY. 57 

heart, and flows along to refresh the neighbourhood, has 
first come secretly from heaven to fill that heart and 
make it overflow. " Love one another, as I have loved 
yon." Of that charity which "sufiereth long and is 
kind," the pattern was shown, the fountain was opened, 
" ill the mount," — not that which was covered with fire 
and smoke, but that which was stained with the blood 
of Christ. The love which springs there, is, as it courses 
through the life of a Christian, a great bearer of evil, a 
great doer of good. 

Love, then, where it exists, will, according to its purity 
and power, issue in actual beneficence ; but, alas, where 
is the love ? How little of it is in the world, and how 
dreary the world is for want of it ! If we had enough of 
love, we would have enough. Wanting it, the world is 
a wilderness ; with it the world would be a paradise again. 
Give us this, and we shall possess all. The precise sub- 
ject of which we speak here is, not the way of pardon, 
but the path of duty ; and on this side the first, and the 
second, and the third quality of a good Christian is love. 
See 1 Cor. xiii. This is the gi-and practical want of the 
world : how shall it be supplied ? For instruction on 
this point, ascend now another step of the text. 

IV. " Provoke unto love and good works." Let us 
attend carefully to the meaning of the term "provoke;" 
bearing in mind, however, as we proceed, that whatever 
kind of action the word may be found to indicate, it is 
action on ourselves, and not on our neighbours. As 
we use it at the present day, it is one of the most 



58 THE NATURE AND SOURCE 

biting, scalding words in the language. If you have 
made an appointment and kept it ; if, when you come to 
the appointed place at the appointed time, the other con- 
tracting party be not there to meet you ; if, in conse- 
quence of his neglect, you lose your time and your trouble, 
and, perhaps, your temper, you say, It is provoking ; and 
so it is. If a man who has nothing, and does nothing, 
contrive to fasten himself like a parasite upon your pro- 
perty and industry ; if, in sj^ite of all your efforts to keep 
him at bay, the bankrupt get hold of your name and 
involve you in his faU, he has provoked you, and you are 
accordingly provoked. But in all such cases, the person 
provoked is provoked not to love, but to anger. We 
might, therefore, conclude, from the nature of the case, 
that the provocation which the text commends and 
commands must be of another kind ; and, in point 
of fact, we find that it is of another — an opposite 
kind. 

I shall endeavour to explain this. I am anxious to 
rescue this precious precept from the misunderstanding in 
which it is apt to be involved by the modern meaning of 
the word in our language. Even the English word in 
its origin means simply to call forth; the unsavoury sig- 
nification is altogether secondary. The term in the ori- 
ginal Greek of the New Testament literally and really 
signifies, For the purpose of stirring up, or sharpening, oi 
kindling love. We need not be surprised to find that 
injunction here. The love that is current in the Church 
is defective in kind and quality. It greatly needs to be 
stirred up. It is like a fire smouldering, and ready to 



OF TEUE PHILANTHROPY. 59 

die. Oh, for a breath from heaven to quicken it ! We 
would fain see it bursting into a blaze, and hear all our 
jealousies and hollow hypocrisies crackling off in the flame. 
Love must be kindled into a paroxysm ; for that is the 
original term untranslated, and that term, even in our 
own language, truly indicates the inspired apostle's mind. 
All the really effective machinery for doing good in the 
world depends for propulsion on the love that glows in 
human breasts : with all the revival of our own favoured 
times, the wheels, clogged with the thick clay of a pre- 
dominating selfishness, move but slowly. Up with the 
impelling love into greater warmth, that it may put forth 
greater power ! 

The only other example of precisely the same word in 
the New Testament is in Acts xv. 89, " And the conten- 
tion was so sharp between them, that they departed 
asunder one from the other.'' The conflict of judg- 
ment between Paul and Barnabas on that occasion is 
described as a paroxysm. There, in the history, it was 
intensity of disagreement; here, in the precept, it is in- 
tensity of love ; but in the two cases the same word is 
used in the same meaning. Alas, it is easier to kindle 
anger than love in the breasts of the fallen ! The Worse 
is lighted oftener, and blazes higher amongst us, than the 
better emotion. A disagreement bursts out between two 
or three persons in high positions, and, as a direct effect, 
armies march and fleets sail, thousands bleed, and fruitful 
lands are devastated. The devouring flame, kindled by 
a spark, spreads far and fast, leaving a broad black belt 
of desolation across a continent. Christians, our flame is 



60 THE NATUKE AND SOUECE 

as powerful for results on the world as theirs ; but the 
spark that lights it, like the fire which consumed the 
sacrifice in Israel, must be brought from heaven. 

We see, then, that there should be a parox3^sm of love ; 
but what shall produce the paroxysm? For this, ascend 
another step. 

Y. " Consider one another to provoke unto love and good 
works." The exercise prescribed for provoking unto love 
conclusively determines the persons on whom the provoca- 
tion was expected to take efiect. It is the considerer, 
not the considered, who is provoked unto love. By 
thinking of my brother in his need I may be stirred up 
to pity him, but the mental process that goes on within 
my breast does not touch him for good or for evil. He 
may not know that I am considering his case ; he may 
not know that there is such a person in the world. When 
we consider the heathen in India and China our medita- 
tion takes effect, not on them, but on ourselves. It stirs 
up, not them to love ns, but us to love them. 

The question here, let it be remembered, concerns not 
the divine cause of love, but the human agency employed 
in kindling it. It is the Spirit that quickeneth ; but at 
present we look only to the lower side — the instrument- 
ality of men. When fire is kindled by light direct from 
the sun, the same two must always conspire — the descent 
of the burning ray from heaven, and the preparation for 
receiving it on earth. The solar rays must be concen- 
trated on combustible material, by means of a glass with 
a convex surface, held in a certain attitude, and at a cer- 



OF TRUE PHILANTHROPY. 61 

tain distance. Without these preparations, even the sun 
in the heavens cannot kindle a flame. 

Thus it becomes a question of deep interest, What atti- 
tude must we assume, and what preparation must we 
make, in order that love, by the ministry of the Spirit, 
jnay be kindled in our hearts ? Here is the prescription, 
short and plain : " Consider one another." 

It is a Christian's duty to consider various objects, each 
in its own place and time. It is necessary that each 
should consider himself: " Let a man examine himself;" 
'•' Prove your own selves whether ye be in the faith." It 
is also necessary that each should " consider the apostle 
and high priest of our profession, Christ Jesus." These 
two, simultaneous or alternate, are precious and needful 
exercises. Look in, that you may know the patient's 
need ; and up, that you may know the Physician's power. 
But it is another and different exercise which this text 
prescribes. To consider ourselves may be the means of 
begetting in us a desire for mercy : to consider Christ 
may be the means of begetting in us a trust in the 
Saviour ; but in order to kindle in our hearts a self- 
denying, brother-saving love to men, the true specific is 
to "consider one another." Self-pleasing is the bane of 
the world and the Church. It is not the mind which 
was in Christ Jesus ; " Though he was rich, yet for our 
sakes he became poor, that we through his poverty might 
be rich.'' Now, as well as in the days of the apostles, 
there are many antichrists ; and most certainly a selfish 
epirit is one of them. He considered us, and at the sight 
of our sin and misery self-sacrificing love glowed in his 



62 THE NATUKE AND SOUBCE 

breast. When we consider one another as he considered 
us, the sight of a brother's distress will make our compas- 
sion flow. It was " in the bowels of Jesus Christ'* that 
Paul so "greatly longed after" all the brethren at 
Philippi. 

A parallel to this precept, most interesting and instruc- 
tive, is found in the record of the apostle's own experi- 
ence, Acts xvii. 1 6 1 " Now while Paul waited for them 
at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the 
city wholly given to idolatry." The term "stirred" in 
that passage is, in the original, the same as " provoke" 
in our text, except that the one is in the form of a verb, 
and the other in the form of a noun ; as one might say, He 
greatly loves his child, or He has great love for his child, 
using now the verb and now the noun, but the same 
word, and in the same signification. 

Twice in one day, sights which met his eye at Athens 
suddenly and totally changed the apostle's plans. His 
first intention was to labour there, for a time at least, 
alone ; but as soon as he caught a glimpse of the city 
from a neighbouring eminence, he sent back to Berea an 
urgent request that Timothy and Silas should join him 
with all speed. His purpose then was to wait till these 
two faithful friends should come up, that they might 
begin their mission in partnership, and sustain each other 
in its toils. But in forming this resolution, Paul knew 
neither Athens the field, nor himself the labourer. The 
spirit of the prophet was not, on that occasion, subject to 
the prophet. Determined to postpone the commence- 
ment of the work till the arrival of his brethren, Paul 



OF TRUE PHILANTHROPY. 63 

passed through the gates of the Grecian capital and walked 
along its sti'eets. Blind alike to the symmetiy of its 
marble monuments and the polish of its living inhabitants, 
he saw only the vile idolatry with which it teemed. 
Idols, idols everywhere, but nowhere a glimpse of the 
true God, or the need of sinners ! He looked and mused ; 
as he was musing the fire burned. He could not bide 
his time ; he could not hold his peace. The fire that 
burned quickly burst through. Neither counting the 
cost nor caring for consequences, he instantly struck in 
with all his might, to turn the idolaters " from darkness 
to light, and from the power of Satan unto God.'"' 

So a single soldier, marching far in advance of the 
army, to obtain information and probe for danger, comes 
suddenly and unexpectedly upon the main body of the 
enemy in battle array. Kindling at the sight, he first 
turns round, and by a trumpet blast summons his com- 
rades to come quickly up ; then draws his sword, and 
strikes home, alone against a host. Well done, good sol- 
dier of Jesus Christ ! 

Thus we see clearly how the prescription operated in 
that case. This man considered these idolaters, and the 
instant effect was a paroxysm of love in his heart, issuing 
in beneficent effort. But will the same application be 
in all cases followed by the same result ? If one man 
consider another, and see him in distress, will self-denying, 
efiicient love to the sufferer forthwith fill the observer's 
heart, as effect follows cause in nature ? Ah ! surely that 
rule does not always hold good. 

See an opposite result in the smallest of human affairs,. 



64 THE NATURE AND SOURCE 

and the largest. Here is a young child with a toy in 
his hand, which has been in his possession a whole day, 
and of which, consequently, he is weary, looking on a 
still younger child playing with a toy that seems new. 
This human being is considering that other human being, 
and, according to the sequence marked in the text, he 
should be stirred up to love and good works ; but, instead, 
you see the elder child snatch the coveted plaything from 
the younger, and beat him when he reclaims against the 
wrong. • On a larger scale you may see the same process 
repeated. A king and government look across the 
border, and observe a neighbouring king and govern- 
ment in trouble. Instead of love, covetousness is kindled ; 
and instead of good works, invasion and robbery follow. 
Between those two extremes of smallest and greatest, the 
space is occupied by whole legions of similar examples. 
" Consider one another;" so we do, but alas ! the considera- 
tion does not always stir up love and draw forth kindness. 

Something is wanting yet. The love and the look on 
one another which seemed, when we saw them first, to 
be the head waters of our river, turn out to be but tarns 
on the elevated moorland, which must themselves be 
filled by deeper and more perennial springs that rise on 
a higher level. 

One step higher, and we reach the real spring at last. 

VI. "And consider one another, to provoke unto love 
and good works." I would not play with a word ; I 
would not extract the doctrines of grace from a copulative 
conjunction. But in this passage, the little word "and" 



OF TRUE PHILANTHROPY. 65 

is the link by which all that we have yet gotten hangs 
on the higher, — hangs on the highest. 

The exhortation to consider is the last of three 
which are given in an exact logical series, occupying 
verses 22-24. You will better observe their relation if 
yo^ read the precepts alone in succession, omitting the 
matter, most precious in itself, which fills the interstices. 
" Let us draw near," — " let us hold fast/' — " and let us 
consider." The last does not stand alone. Alone it 
would be of no avail. As well might you expect a cure, 
if you should administer only the last of three ingre- 
lients in your physician's prescription. 

The first requisite, as written in the 2 2d verse, is to 
come yourself to the blood of Christ for pardon. The 
second, as wi-itten in the 23d verse, is to hold fast by 
hope what you have attained by faith. The third, as 
written in the 24th verse, is to consider one another 
with a view to stir up love and bring forth active bene- 
ficence. Come to the Saviour for the cleansing of your 
own conscience, and abide in peace under the light of 
his countenance : then and thence, look out upon your 
brother : the result of the combination will be thoughts 
of love and acts of kindness, as certainly and as uniformly 
as any of the sequences in natui-e. He who has drawn 
near, and is holding fast, — that is, he who has himself 
been forgiven through the blood of the Lamb, and is living 
in the consciousness of being accepted in the Beloved, can- 
not hate and hurt his brother. 

The act of considering or looking upon an object is of no 
avail to direct aright your own course, apart from the posi- 



66 THE NATURE AND SOURCE 

tion in which you stand when you make your observa- 
tions. A red light shines aloft at the narrow entrance 
of a safe harbour. A ship sweeping along the coast in 
a storm, sees the light, and makes straight for it through 
the waves and the darkness. She strikes a rock, and 
goes down in deep water. Why? This is the harbqur, 
and the light she made for marks its mouth. Ah ! it is 
not enough that you see the light ; you must see it from 
a particular position, and make for it then. The right posi- 
tion is always correctly determined and laid down on the 
charts. Generally it is fixed by one or more other lights 
which you must see in line before you head for the harbour. 

" Consider one another," — that is the last and lowest 
of the three lights which lead to love. The course is 
marked for the Christian in his chart. One clause of 
the instructions is, Keep your eye on that light, and run 
in ; but another clause in combination with it, equally divine 
and equally necessary, intimates, that ere you can go in with 
safety to yourself or benefit to others, you must get into 
line with these other two lights which stretch away 
dpward, and lean at last on heaven. 

Authors who are under the guidance of divine inspira- 
tion, are not on that account less apt to repeat their own 
conceptions in other combinations and other forms. Else- 
where in Paul's writings we meet the same things in the 
same order, in circumstances which demonstrate that the 
power of the last depends on the union of all, — that the 
lower links hang absolutely on the higher. Draw near, 
hold fast, and consider in order to love. "Faith, Hope, 
Charity these three."' Ay, these three you may, 



OF TRUE PHILANTHROPY. 67 

through the grace of the Spirit, get and keep ; but the 
last one will nofe live alone. Severed from the group, it 
dies. He who has himself come to God in Christ and 
found mercy ; who in all life's tossings holds fast by his 
first hope, as the anchor of his soul, with every new 
strain of temptation fixing its fluke the deeper in sure 
bedding within the veil,— he, when he considers a neigh- 
bour in need, is, by the laws of the new creation, provoked 
unto love and good works. 

You have more confidence in the physician's prescrip- 
tion if you know that, in the same disease, himself has 
experienced its efficacy. Paul, we know, practised this 
course of spiritual exercise before he prescribed it. He 
lived it first, and preached it then. He had considered 
the Athenians, as they bowed before their idols, and cast 
their offerings on the altar of the unknown God. His 
heart had burned within him at the sight. That internal 
fire had precipitated him with all his force on the work 
of enlightening the ignorant, and liberating the enslaved. 
He had tried his own prescription on himself; having 
found it efficacious, he publishes it for the benefit of alL 

But Paul had taken all the three ingredients together, ere 
his heart was stirred up to love by the sight of a brother 
in distress. From his own experience he knew that the 
last alone is utterly barren of good. Saul's heart lay 
cold and still, like a frozen lake swept by a tempest, 
while the ruffian murderers, whom he hounded on, 
were shedding Stephen's blood in his sight. The 
martyr's eyes were raised to heaven, and a light from 
heaven made his face shine like an angel's before the 



G8 THE NATUKE AND SOUECE OF TEUE PHILANTHEOPY. 

time ; the martyr's last prayer was uttered, and its 
gentle accents fell on the persecutor's ear ; but Saul of 
Tarsus felt no softness quivering then about his heart. 
A mighty change had passed upon the man, between 
the time when he saw unmoved Christ's fii'st martyr 
die, and the time when the sight of Athenian idolatry 
kindled in his breast a holy jealousy for God, and threw 
him headlong, a solitary enthusiast, upon the hostility of 
a whole nation. While the objects remain similar, the 
observer's stand-point has been changed. He has drawn 
near with a true heart in the full assurance of faith, and 
holds fast the blessed hope in Christ, which through faith 
he at first attained. Now, from the standing of a 
sinner saved, and in the spirit of a saint rejoicing, he 
looks forth upon a lost world ; the look lights up all 
that is within him into a flame of self-sacrificino; love. 



PLACE OF THE LAW IN SALVATION OF SINNERS. 69 



V. 



THE PLACE OF THE LAW IN THE SALVATION 

OF SINNERS. 

" For I was alive without the law once ; but when the commandment came^ sin 
revived, and I died."— Rom. vii. 9, 

A FEEE salvation has been provided : the world's chief 
need now is a sense of sin. It is not food that is awant- 
ing, but hunger. There is healing balm at hand ; but 
where are the broken hearts ? The work of Christ is 
complete ; we need to-day the Spirit's ministry. If we 
were brought down, the end were already sure, for God 
is pledged to exalt the lowly. " Blessed are the poor in 
spirit, for theirs is the kingdom." 

Christ is preached in our land, in our day. Pardon 
through his blood is published free to all. His name has 
become a common sound on earth, even as it is in heaven. 
But privilege neglected does not save. It is mercy ac- 
cepted that lifts a sinner up to heaven ; mercy oiTered be- 
comes a makeweight in the doom of the lost. It is not 
Christ in the Bible, Christ in the creed, Christ in the ser- 
mon ; but " Christ in you the hope of glory/' It is 
not. Blessed are they who have bread, like manna from 
heaven, lying round their dwellings or trampled under 
their feet ; but. Blessed are they that hunger. The rich 
provision of the covenant is set forth in vain to guests 



70 THE PLACE OF THE LAW 

who are already satiated with a different and more con- 
genial aliment. 

The text does not directly publish the fulness of a 
Saviour ; but it lays open the emptiness of a sinner. It 
is not the first and great commandment of the gospel, 
Look up unto Jesus ; but it is the second which is like 
unto it, Look down into yourself These two exercises 
go together, and constitute the two sides of the spiritual 
life. The one we ought to do ; but the other we ought 
not to leave undone. 

In this chapter we have a brief, but exquisitely graphic 
specimen of autobiography. It is the history of a holy 
war, in which the writer was at once the battle-field and 
the combatant. It is a chart drawn by inspiration, of the 
pilgrims' route from the City of Destruction to the gate of 
the New Jerusalem. Here the man himself, guided by 
the Spirit, teUs the story of his course — his starting point 
under the wrath of God due to sin, his hard warfare by 
the way, and his glorious victory at last. In one short 
verse you have a bird's eye view of the whole campaign. 
In these few lines you may trace a sinner's footsteps on 
the passage over from death unto life. 

The text contains explicitly or implicitly these three 
things : — 

1. A life which a man has in himself, and of himself. 

2. The passage out of that life by a dying. 

3. The new life into which that dying brings him. 

1. The life which Paul at first possessed of his own : 
" I was alive without the law once/' 



m THE SALVATION OF SINNERS. 7l 

2. The process of ejectment from that life : " The com- 
mandment came, sin revived, and I died.'' 

3. Another life which he then attained ; for he does 
not say, I am dead ; but, I died. The death is a thing 
past, and he utters this testimony from the land of the 
living. 

In the books of Moses you may find in very large 
letters the same three things which this short text con- 
tains. The things that happened to the Hebrews hap- 
pened to them for ensamples. God in providence arranged 
occurring events then in such a manner as to constitute 
types, whereby we in this latter day might print our own 
spii'itual history. 

1. In Egypt Israel were slaves, and yet they were 
satisfied with the carnal comforts that were agoing there, 
and listless about the liberty to which their great leader 
beckoned them : this is like Paul's first life, with which he 
was quite satisfied, " I was alive," &c, 

2. The exodus, comprehending the Red Sea at its 
commencement, the perils of the wilderness during its 
course, and the passage of Jordan at its close, correspond 
to Paul's escape, " The commandment came," &c. 

3. The promised land, with its plenty, and liberty, and 
worship, into which Israel entered at a bound as they 
emerged from Jordan, corresponds to Paul's new life in 
the kingdom of God. 

I. A life which a man enjoys in and of himself before 
he knows God : " I was alive without the law once." 



72 THE PLACE OF THE LAW 

This is the natural state of the fallen. It is here 
called life, and elsewhere it is called death. The wide 
diversity of the names employed to designate the same 
thing need not cause surprise. The one term expresses 
the true state of the man, and the other term expresses 
the man's own view of his state. Iq God's sight it is 
death : in his own imagination it is life. Paul is here 
giving the view which he took of his unconverted state, 
when he was in it. I was alive, I lived once. Ask 
the converted Paul what he now thinks of his former 
condition ; he will answer, I was dead in trespasses and 
sins. Here he is describing his own former estimate of 
his own former state. He thought his life was good, and 
counted therefore on God's approval. 

But how could he so far deceive himself? Sins of 
thought, word, and deed, enough to condemn him, he 
might have seen daily in his own life. How could he be 
so blind as to count himself just with God, while he was 
running counter to the law with all his might ? The 
explanation is given here. He was alive " without the 
law." He could not have lived with it. He maintained 
a good opinion of himself, by keeping God's law away 
from his conscience. The craft by which a hypocrite 
lives is to keep the law in its spirit from reaching his 
heart. If the light of God's countenance should at any 
time find an entrance into his soul, it would be a spark 
on the train of his confidence. 

Why have we so much peace on earth where there is 
so much unpardoned sin — so many unrenewed hearts? 
How can men move about happy and mirthful with the 



IN THE SALVATION OF SINNEKS. 7S 

wrath of God treasured over them ? How can immortal 
creatures dance and laugh on the brink of perdition? 
They live as Saul of Tarsus lived, without God's law. 
They either keep it altogether at a distance, or admit 
it adulterated and disguised. We hear of daring specu- 
lators cooking the accounts of mercantile companies, in 
order to stave off the evil day. Bolder cheats modify 
the law of God, ere they admit it into their consciences, 
that its incoming may not disturb their repose. Instead 
of going to God's word for the law, they go first into 
their own hearts and take the measure of their own tastes; 
on that mould they frame a law, and call it God's. If 
there is a malformation in some member of your body, 
and an order is given for an instrument or type to reduce 
its irregularities, and bring it back to a normal condition, 
you dread the pain of the anticipated operation. Dread- 
ing the pain, you secretly take a cast of your own crooked 
limb, and thereon mould the instrument. When the in- 
strument so prepared is with due formality afterwards 
laid upon the limb, although the mould is made of iron 
and pressed fully home, it will not hurt the patient. His 
limb will feel easy, but it will not be made straight. Thus 
men go to their own hearts, and cast thereon their concep- 
tion of the divine law, and, for form's sake, ostentatiously 
apply the thing that is labelled God's word to their own 
hearts again, but the application never makes them cry. 
The flesh is not crucified. The high things of an evil 
heart are not brought low ; its crooked parts are not made 
straight. The process is pleasant, and it serves the 
deceiver for a religion. It is a prophet according to 



74 THE PLACE OF THE LAW 

Ahab's own heart; it never prophesies evil concerning 
him, but only good. The old man is not killed by the 
law of God as it comes from heaven, but soothed by a 
forged instrument which falsely bears its name. 

Thus, when we frame a rule on the model of our own 
attainments, and then by sleight of hand pass it off as the 
law of God, its application cuts off no right arm, and 
plucks out no right eye, — crucifies no lust, and disap- 
points no carnal expectation. After the visit of such a 
law the Pharisee is left standing still on his feet, lifting 
up his eye unabashed to heaven, and impudently magni- 
fying his own righteousness. 

The system on which the legalist proceeds is to expect 
that the Judge will overlook failings, and take the good 
will for the deed. When you stand on this principle, no 
conceivable amount of shortcoming will damp your hope. 
The more indulgence you need, the more you demand. As 
you advance with your encroachments, this shadow whom 
you call God's law retires and gives you room. The law 
which would be your death is kept out of the way, and 
therefore you contrive to live. 

II. The exodus from that Egypt ; the escape from 
that false life by a dying : " The commandment came, 
sin revived, and I died.'' 

1. " The commandment came." It is no longer an imi- 
tation law, modelled on the measure of his own attain- 
ments, which might be pressed upon his conscience, and 
yet not extinguish his self-righteous life. It is now The 
Commandment. It is the unchanging wiU of the un- 



IN THE SALVATION OF SINNERS. YD 

changing God — the word which liveth and abideth for 
ever. It is a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces. 
This law comes, not taking the shape which a man's 
guilty heart desires to give it, but keeping faithfully 
every line of righteousness that it got at first from God. 
When the law comes to the man, its Author comes with 
it, and the culprit dare not put forth his hand to blunt 
its awful edge. It comes unbidden, and no tears can 
make it turn away. Convincing light goes before it, and 
vengeance follows at its back. It comes proclaiming its 
uniform demand : " Be ye holy, for I ^m holy;'' uttering its 
irrevocable sentence : "The soul that sinneth it shall 
die." 

This new-comer is felt an intruder within the conscience, 
and an authority over it. Hitherto the man, in all his 
active and well-favoured religiousness, had merely played 
at law and gospel, justice and mercy. He taught a 
shadowy image, called law, to go through certain solemn 
evolutions in his presence ; but it came and went at his 
nod, and although it stalked about with much pomp and 
circumstance, he feared not the phantom which himself 
had conjured up. He had procured a painted fire, which 
maintained the appearance of heat, and yet did not burn 
him when he laid it in his bosom. But now the image 
had started into Hfe in his hands ; the picture had, 
by the breath of the Spirit, been kindled into a real 
flame. The law became within him, like the face of 
God, a consuming fire. It came, working its way into 
all the interstices of his heart and his history ; it came, 
elastic and pliant like the air of heaven, pouring itself 



76 THE PLACE OF THE LAW 

into every crevice, and folding his whole soul in one 
dread embrace. This commandment came into the man, 
and found him " enmity against God/' 

2. " Sin revived " at the entrance of this visitant. He 
speaks still of his state as it appeared to his own con- 
sciousness during the process, not as it truly was in the 
sight of God. It was not by the coming of the com- 
mandment that sin was brought to life within him. 
Before that time sin lived, sin reigned, in his members ; 
but then and thereby he first felt sin, like a serpent 
creeping about his heart, and loath.ed its presence. 

Hitherto sin had been wasting him, but he knew it 
not- The disease was undermining his life, without giv- 
ing him pain. The evil spirit met no opposition, and 
therefore produced no disturbance. The commandment 
coming in did not cause, but only detected sin. " I had 
not known sin, but by the law : for I had not known 
lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet." 
With great precision and transparency the apostle here 
defines his own meaning. In the general, he would not 
have known sin if the law had not revealed it ; in par- 
ticular, and as an example, he would not have known 
sinful desires if the tenth commandment had not for- 
bidden them. He does not say, " I had not sinned but 
for the law." He was sinning before the law in its 
power came in contact with his conscience ; but he 
thought, meantime, that aU his life was righteousness. 
It was by the light of the commandment, when it came, 
that he discovered the sin which had all along been 
living and reigning in his heart and life. 



IN THE SALVATION OF SINNEES. 77 

The course of his life was ]ike a river flowing through 
a level plain, slowly but steadily, toward the sea. So 
smooth is its surface, that a traveller approaching could 
not tell in what direction it is flowing, or whether it is 
flowing at all. A rock at mid-channel, protruding 
above the surface, reveals the current by opposing it. 
An obstruction makes known both the direction and the 
velocity of the river's flow. But the rock that detects 
the movement did not produce it. Such is the relation 
between sin in the soul and the law which reveals it. 
Life is rolling downward like a river, — one great volume 
of enmity against God. Because all is sin, the self- 
deceived man does not notice that there is any. When 
the law of God gets a footing within, a commotion round 
the point of contact suddenly makes it known that hither- 
to the whole life has been " without God in the world.'' 

Further : as the rock in the river's bed did not cause, 
neither is it able to reverse the current. It can only 
show that there is a stream, giving some indication of its 
direction and its speed. Although impeded and chafed into 
foam at the spot, the river rises to the difficulty, and 
rushes down more rapidly than before. It is thus with 
the commmandment when it opposes sin in a human 
heart. If it remain alone, although it has power to 
disturb, it has not power to renew. " The king's heart 
is as a river of water," and it cannot be turned to holi- 
ness by the law which proclaims its sin. What the 
law could not do, God did by another agent, on an- 
other plan. 

The diflerence between a man who is " without the 



78 THE PLACE OF THE LAW 

law/' and a man into whose conscience "the command- 
ment has come/' is not that the one continues sinning 
and the other has ceased to sin. The distinction rather 
is, that the one tastes the pleasures of sin, such as they 
are, while the other writhes at its bitterness. In the 
one the stream of evil flows smoothly ; in the other it is 
disturbed by alarming convictions. In both the foun- 
tain remains the same, only evil, and that continually. 
The law, where it comes in power, may mar the smooth- 
ness of the river's flow ; but can neither change its 
course nor seal its spring. 

Observe here, in passing, that the coming of the com- 
mandment for the conviction of sin is not necessarily the 
work of a day or an hour. In Paul's case, indeed, the 
process was very short. During that journey to Damas- 
cus, it seems to have begun and ended. But in most cases, 
especially where the bulk of the people have been accus- 
tomed from infancy to the reading of the Bible and the 
preaching of Christ, the law enters the conscience, as a 
besieging army wins a fortress, by slow and gradual 
approaches. Sometimes the will, strong in its innate 
and habitual ungodliness, drives back the law ; at other 
times the law, imder cover, perhaps, of some providential 
chastening, renews the assault, and gains a firmer footing 
further in. The conflict and the conquest may be the 
work of years — ^the work of a life-time ; but whether by 
many successive stages, or by one overwhelming onset, 
the issue, if the work of grace go on, is, as it is recorded 
here, " Sin revived, and " — 

3. " I died." The life in which he had hitherto trusted 



IN THE SALVATION OF SINNEES. 79 

was extinguished then. Convictions rose and closed 
round like the waves of a flowing tide, until they covered 
and quenched his vain hope. Bit by bit his standing- 
room of self-righteousness was taken away. Depart 
ments of his heart and his history, which till now he 
had thought good against the final judgment, were 
successively flooded by the advancing, avenging law. 
This good intention and that charitable deed — a right- 
eous transaction there, and an exercise of repentance 
here — prayers, penances, and a long catalogue of miscel 
laneous virtues, floating down the stream of daily life, 
had coalesced and consolidated, as wood, hay, stubble, 
stones, mud, carried down by a river sometimes aggre- 
gate into an island in the estuary. The heap seemed to 
afford a firm footing for the fugitive in any emergence. 

Upon this heap "the commandment came.'' It came 
from God. It came with divine authority. It came 
with resistless power. It entered into his heart, and 
flowed over his whole life-course. It rose like the tide 
over the pieces of merit on which the man had taken 
his stand, and blotted them out. One by one they disap- 
peared. He saw with dismay the whole region of 
honesty, and diligence, and almsgiving, and devotion, 
marked as sin, and given over to wrath. The law has 
come and covered them. Where they lay nothing now 
remains but a fearful looking for of judgment. 

But still the commandment comes. The convict, 
trembling now for his life, abandons aU that seems doubt- 
ful, and hastily gathering some of the very best and 
surest parts of his righteousness, piles them beneath his 



80 THE PLACE OF THE LAW 

feet. He will no longer give himself out as a saint ; he 
even owns that he is a sinner. He claims only to have 
sinned less than some whom he knows, and to have done 
some good things which might at least palliate the evil. 
The law pays no respect to this refuge of lies, and shows 
no pity to the fugitive. Still it comes. One great wave 
— " thou shalt love the Lord thy God " — dashes on, and 
washes down at a stroke the whole pile on which the 
hope of the hypocrite was built. Not a fragment of its 
foundation can now be seen, and the avenging law 
tumultuates triumphant over the place where once it stood. 
" With all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all 
thy mind ;" thus wave follows wave, until the law of God 
has covered all the righteousness of men, and left it 
lying deep in everlasting contempt. 

This death of false hope is, as its name indicates, like 
the departure of the spirit from its house of clay. 
Disease having gained a footing in the frame, makes its 
approaches, more slowly or more rapidly, and closes upon 
the man. Within a narrower and narrower circuit 
the encroaching enemy confines the life. Member after 
member is overtaken and paralyzed. The soul, pressed 
by a greater power, abandons one by one the less 
defensible extremities, and seeks refuge in its own interior 
fastnesses. Still the adversary, holding every point that 
he has gained, presses on for more. To one remaining 
foothold the distressed occupant clings a while; but that 
refuge, too, the inexorable besieger takes at last. Chased 
by the strange usurper from every part of its long-- 
cherished home, the life flickers over it a moment, like 



IN THE SALVATION OF SINNERS. 8 1 

the flame of an expiring lamp, and then darts away into 
the unseen. 

So perished the hope of the self-righteous man. He 
died. What, then? Then- 
Ill. He lives in another life. No interval of time 
separated the two. The death that led from one life 
was the birth into another. 

We do not read " I am dead," as the testimony of this 
man, at the turning-point of his spiritual history. " I 
died.'' Listen ; it is the voice, not of the dead, but of 
the living. No articulate sound issues from a grave. 
The dead never tell us how they died. Here the 
possessor of the new life informs us how he was driven 
from the old. Israel, God's dear child, settled now in 
the promised land, weaves the events of his strange 
history into a song of praise. The exodus from Egypt, 
and the passage of the Jordan, with all that filled the inter- 
val, seem but one step now, and that the step of the ran- 
somed heir from the house of bondage into his eternal home. 
On this side, too, the death through which Paul 
passed at conversion, is like that death which lays a 
Christian's weary body in the grave to rest, and admits 
his spirit into the presence of the Lord. "He that 
believeth on me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." 
When the body's strength is waning, and the emaciated 
members can no longer obey the will; when the breath 
is panting quickly, and the blood is flowing feebly, and 
the soul is hovering on the outmost verge of life, — another 
life, conterminous with this one along all its border, is 



82 THE PLACE OF THE LAW 

ready to receive the exile. Eternity marches everywhere 
with time, as the sea marches with the land. There is 
no intervening space. The step that takes you out of 
one takes you into the other. As we, on this side, wait 
to receive the infant at its birth, and shout for joy when 
a man child is born into our world, — sons of God, on the 
other side, near us, though unseen, will learn to observe 
that shaking of the dividing veil which is caused by the 
dying struggle of a saint, counting and calling it the 
symptom of a birth, and welcoming the newborn into 
their brighter world. While we are weeping over the 
dead, they, not a step distant, are rejoicing over the 
living. The exodus is a death or a birth, according to 
the side from which it is seen. 

Such, also, is the death through which Paul passed at 
the stage of his spiritual experience which is described 
in the text. The fact, like the person, has two sides. 
If you stand on this side and look, he dies ; if you stand 
on that side and look, he is born. It is one act. The 
dying is the living. The exodus from this life is the 
entrance into that. He does not remain one moment 
dead. The instant after his death, you hear him ex- 
claiming, " I died." His own voice declaring how and 
when he died, is the surest evidence that he lives. 

Throughout the whole of his previous history, Paul 
had stood on the ground, and breathed the atmosphere 
of his own merits. Probably, like other people, he was 
obliged frequently to remove from place to place in that 
•egion. Now his hope depended more on one good deed, 
and now more on another. Sometimes his conscience 



IN THE SALVATION OF SINNERS. 83 

grew uneasy, and compelled liim to shift his ground ; but 
as long as his first life lasted, every change was a change 
from one thing in himself to another thing in himself 
Even the law, when it began to track his path, and 
confine his range, could not, with all its terrors, drive 
him wholly forth of his own righteousness. It hunted 
him up and down, and made him miserable in that 
region ; but still that region was all the world to him ; 
he would not, could not leave it. 

What the law could not do, God did by sending his 
Son. Christ came near the tempted, tormented man, — 
came near, as the Lord our righteousness. Christ brought 
his own righteousness, divine and infinite, into contact 
with Paul and Paul's wretched righteousness. Christ 
came, and called, pleaded, wept, " Come unto me, and I 
will give you rest." Now, the law chasing him once 
more, chased him over. Out of his own merits went the 
man that moment, and into Christ. Then he died; and 
from the moment of his death he lived. Henceforth you 
find him continually telling of his life, what it is, and 
where he found it, " Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but 
Christ liveth in me ;" "Our life is hid with Christ in God." 

The man whose footsteps are marked here was one of 
the Good Shepherd's flock. We must follow this track, 
if we would enter the fold. In the suddenness of the 
passage our experience may be different ; but in the 
way by which he went, our experience must be the same. 

This is the way, — the way of life : I am leaning on 
my own merits in prospect of the judgment. The law, 
revealing glimpses alternately of God's justice and of my 



84 THE PLACE OF THE LAW 

sin, drives me hither and thither within this region, 
seeking peace and finding none. When I am at the 
point of despair, beginning to perceive that my own 
righteousness, instead of saving, will justly condemn me, 
yet desperately clinging to it, because I know no other, 
then Christ comes near. There is no terror in his 
look. I see his compassion flowing. He bids me 
abandon my own righteousness, and put on his. Drawn 
on this side by Christ's love, and driven on the other side 
by the law's terror, I at last let all my fastenings go, and 
cast myself into the Saviour's outstretched arms. I leap 
from my own righteousness into Christ's. I pass from 
death unto life. " There is now no condemnation to 
them that are in Christ Jesus." 

Let the line be distinctly marked between what the 
law can, and what it cannot do. It may turn your root 
into rottenness, but it cannot cause a living tree to spring 
from the dust of the dead one. It may shake, until it 
shake down all the foundations of a man's first hope, but 
it cannot bear away the stricken victim from the ruins. It 
can make the unforgiven sinner more miserable, but it cannot 
make him more safe. It is only when Christ comes near 
with a better righteousness, that even the commandment, 
raging in the conscience, can drive you from your own. 
All Pharaoh's armies closing round could not have driven 
the helpless Hebrews forth from the confines of Egypt, if 
the Red Sea had not opened and offered them a passage 
through. We owe much to a terrible law for not per- 
mitting us to rest under the wrath to come ; but more to 
a winning Saviour for being our refuge and drawing us 



IN THE SALVATION OF SINNERS. 85 

in. We owe much to thai flaming justice which made 
the old Hfe die, but more to that love which received 
the dying as he fell into life eternal. 

I desire to make it plain to your understanding, and 
leave it deeply imprinted on your hearts, that though 
the law, like flaming fire and stormy winds, becomes 
God's messenger to run his errands of mercy, yet the 
saved owe their salvation all to Christ. 

I awake from a swoon, alone. The fathomless sea is 
beneath me, the fathomless sky above me., and I am 
clinging convulsively to some broken bits of wood. The 
burning, sinking ship — the shrieking, drowning crowd, — I 
can scarcely be said to remember : a dim, faintly-outlined 
image of them hovers like mist about my troubled brain. 
The sky grows dark, the wind grows stormy, the waves 
leap higher, the little raft is rending ; I am sink — sinking 
in the sea alone. Will these terrors drive me from my 
frail resting-place? In these extremities will I let my 
failing foothold go ? Yes, if I see the life-b oat bearing 
down upon me, and feel a line thrown from her bows 
falling athwart my body, and hear a brother's shout 
above the storm, " Hold fast by this and you are safe ! " 
The storm above, the waves around, the rending beneafch 
me, will not drive me off* my bits of broken wood, unless the 
life-boat is by my side. Although I know my standing to 
be unsafe, although I feel it going asunder, I will cling to it 
and perish with it, if nothing better is within my reach. 

If I am saved to-day, I owe much to the law which 
taught me that I was lost, but more to Christ who became 
my Saviour. 



86 VESSELS CHOSEN, CHAEGED, AND USED 



VL 



VESSELS CHOSEN, CHARGED, AND USED IN 
THE WORK OF THE LORD. 

" But the Lord said unto him, Gro thy way : for he is a chosen vessel unto me, 
to bear my name before the Gfentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel." 
— Acts ix. 15. 

The apostle Paul occupies a large place in tlie Bible, in 
the Church, in history, in heaven. No mere man, before 
or since, has filled so great a space in the scheme of Pro- 
vidence, or left his mark so wide and deep upon the 
world. The gospel is the greatest power that has ever 
operated on earth, and Paul was its greatest minister. 

Considering the tendency to hero-worship, which seems 
inherent in our fallen nature, there was gi^eat danger lest 
he who stood so far above his fellows should be mistaken 
for a god. This danger was foreseen and averted in the 
election and calling of Paul. He who conceived the plan 
and executed it, hath done all things well. The wor- 
shippers of that saint will be put to shame when the 
Scriptures reveal the hole of the pit whence sovereign 
mercy dug their idol. The history of SauFs conversion 
proclaims more clearly, more loudly than an angel's 
voice, '' See thou do it not." 

This most learned doctor of the schools, the Pharisee 
who scrupulously tithed his mint, and devoutly buckled 



IN THE WOEK OF THE LORD. 87 

on his broad phylacteries, was the life and soul of the 
infuriated gang who shed the blood of Christ's earliest 
martyr. The mob executioners got their signal in the 
glance of his cruel eye. He satiated his own sectarian 
pride by the murder of the good, and crowned his wicked- 
ness by offering the bloody deed as a service done to God. 
To make an idol of this man, when by free grace he is 
highly exalted and greatly used, is either impossible or 
inexcusable. God needed a man to signal the glad tid- 
ings so that they might be seen afar ; with this view he 
lifted one up from the lowest place, and set him on the 
highest. Thus divine mercy found free scope, and human 
pride was effectually excluded. Job, though free from 
idolatry in fact, confessed that " the moon walking in 
brightness'' tempted him to kiss his hand in token of 
reverence, as if the creature were divine. But if he had 
known that moon at first, a mass of impurity lying on 
the earth and polluting it, and seen it then by God's 
hand lifted up, and lighted, and balanced in the sky, he 
would not have experienced any tendency to worship the 
once filthy and still feeble thing. All the homage of his 
heart would have risen spontaneously to the living and 
true God, who made that lesser light, and hung it in 
heaven for the use of men. It is thus that we are kept 
from unduly reverencing the apostle Paul, although, under 
the Sun of righteousness, he is the largest light of our 
spiritual firmament; for in our sight he was, by mere 
mercy, lifted from the mire of guilt, and fixed the loftiest 
and brightest of that cloud of witnesses who receive and 
reflect the *' Light of the world." 



88 VESSELS CHOSEN, CHARGED, AND USED 

We shall best explain and apply the text by examining 
its terms in succession, one by one. 

I. A vessel. The term signifies the implement by 
which any work is done, or the dish in which anything 
is held. It is an instrument constructed and fitted for 
use in any species of operation. 

All the world is the field whereon God works, and it 
is full of the instruments which he employs. Every 
flower, every leaf, every tendril is a cunningly contrived 
instrument, designed and fitted for carrying on some deli- 
cate process in the vegetable ecomony. In animals every 

member of the body is a tool with which the creature 

with which the great Creator works. The eye, the ear, 
the tongue, the foot, and a thousand other exquisite in- 
struments, hang at hand in the workshop, ready for the 
worker's use. 

Each separate part of creation, again, is an instrument 
in God's hands for carrying his plans into efiect. The 
internal fires of the globe are his instruments for 
heaving up the mountain ridges, and causing the inter- 
vening valleys to subside. The clouds are vessels em- 
ployed in carrying water from its great reservoir in the 
ocean to every portion of the thirsty land. The rivers are 
waste-pipes for carrying back the soiled water that it may 
be purified for subsequent use. The sun is an instrument 
for lighting and warming a troop of revolving worlds, 
and the earth's huge bulk a curtain for screening off the 
sunlight at stated intervals, and so affording to weary 
workers a grateful night of rest. Chief of all the imple- 



IN THE WORK OF THE LORD. 89 

ments provided and employed on earth, is man — made 
last, made best for his Author's service ; broken, disfigured, 
and defiled by sin, but capable of working wondrously 
yet, when redeemed, and restored, and employed again. 

God has not cast away the best of all his instruments 
because it was marred and polluted. He has conceived 
and executed a costly plan for redeeming and renewing 
it. He spared not his own Son, that he might have from 
this fallen family a multitude of vessels full of his love — 
a multitude of fitting instruments employed in his service. 
A soul won is the best instrument for winning souls. 

II. A chosen vessel. This man, who was raised 
from the ground by his companions and led blind into 
Damascus, is the vessel whom the Lord has sovereignly 
chosen, and will graciously employ. 

"The eyes of the Lord are in every place.'" " Known unto 
God are all his works." Compassing him about in all his 
ways, God felt every throb of impotent anger that was beat- 
ing in the persecutor's heart. Although the vessel was 
marred and occupied with evil, its Maker counted it still 
his own. He can employ the evil as his unconscious in- 
struments, or make them willing in the day of his power. 
When he had chastised backsliding Israel by the King of 
Babylon, he broke the rod and threw it away. In other 
cases he turns the king's heart as a river of water, and 
then accepts the willing homage of a converted man. 

It was a polished and capacious vessel that the Great 
King wrenched from the grasp of the arch-enemy near 
the gate of Damascus. One of the clearest intellects that 



90 VESSELS CHOSEN, CHARGED, AND USED 

ever glowed in a human frame changed hands that day. 
Saul was a man of rare courage. He was a good soldier 
of the wicked one before he owned allegiance to Christ. 
He did what he said. The purposes which his heart 
devised his hand executed. " I verily thought I ought 
to do many things against the name of Jesus of Nazareth, 
which thing I also did." The vessel was capacious, and 
the capacious vessel was full. All the learning of the 
time had been poured into it. The traditions of the 
Jews and the philosophy of the Greeks lay and seethed 
together in that roomy and restless brain. Not only was 
his head full of notions ; his heart was fired with a resolute 
purpose, and his arm was nerved by a dauntless will. 
He was Christ's chief enemy then in the world. He 
breathed forth threatenings and slaughter against the 
members of the Church, blasphemies against its living 
Head. God looks down from heaven on this man, not as 
an adversary whose assaults are formidable, but as an in- 
strument which may be turned to another use. As clay 
in the hands of the potter this man lies. The vessel may 
be broken in anger, or employed in labours of love as the 
Maker wills. Arrested at the crisis of its course by a 
hand unseen, it is turned upside down, emptied of its 
accumulated filth, purged from all its dross, filled from 
heaven's pure treasures, and used to water the world with 
the word of life. Under God's eye and in God's hand, 
this man is not a formidable antagonist, but simply a 
vessel to be broken in judgment, or purified for use on 
earth and in heaven. 

Saul of Tarsus, called to be an apostle, is a conspicuous 



IN THE WOEK OF THE LORD. 91 

example of divine sovereignty. He did not first choose 
Christ, but Christ chose him. He was in the way of 
evil when the Lord met him with subduing, forgiving, 
renewing mercy. When human pride is at last silenced 
by the sense of redeeming love, it is sweet to feel and 
own that Jesus is at once the author and the finisher of our 
faith — " the beginning of the creation of God " within 
renewed human hearts on earth, and the ending thereof 
when the spirits of the just are made perfect in his pre- 
sence. Christ is first and last — all in all. I recognise 
God's command to me, that I should turn and live; I 
recognise my duty to close with his offer; I recognise 
the justice of my condemnation if I refuse to comply. 
God bids me believe and live: I ought to obey; but if I 
obey and be saved like Paul, like him I shall say and 
sing, as the history of my redemption. When I was 
wandering helpless further and further towards death, the 
Good Shepherd followed and found me, turned me round 
and bore me back to his fold. 

III. A vessel unto me. Two things lie in the con- 
version of Paul and in every conversion ; the man gets 
an Almighty Saviour, and God gets a willing servant. 
The true instinct of the new creature burst forth from 
Paul's breast as soon as he knew his Saviour, and before 
he was lifted from the ground, — " Lord, what wilt thou 
have me to do?" The answer, sent through Ananias in 
Damascus, after the tumult had subsided, indicated to 
the convert what he should be, rather than what he 
should do : " He is a chosen vessel unto me." We get 



92 VESSELS CHOSEN, CHAKGED, AND USED 

a glimpse here of the two tendencies, the human and the 
divine. I shall do, says the disciple in the ardour of a 
first love ; Thou shalt "be, answers that wise and kind 
Master, who knows that the spirit in the disciple is will- 
ing, but the flesh weak. To be like Christ is the most 
effectual way of working for Christ. I shall bear the 
vessels of the Lord, volunteers the ransomed sinner, when 
he feels that he is not his own, but bought with a price ; 
the reply to this offer requires a less positive, more pas- 
sive, and yet greater thing ; Thou shalt be the vessel of 
the Lord. It is a great thing that I should take up in- 
struments and do a work for Christ in the world ; but it 
is a greater that Christ should take me in his hand and 
work out his purposes with me. "A people near unto 
him," is an ancient appellation of the saved. Surely they 
are near him who are held as a vessel in his hand. This is 
our security alike for safety and usefulness. The star that 
is in his right hand is held up so that it cannot fall, and held 
out so that it shines afar. When he chooses a vessel he 
uses it ; he neither keeps it idle nor casts it away. 

TV. A vessel to hear ony name. The text tells not 
only what he is and whose he is, but also and specifically to 
what uses he will be applied. He was a vessel firmly 
put together, and filled to overflowing, before Jesus met 
him in the way. At that meeting he was emptied of his 
miscellaneous vanities, and filled with the name of Christ. 
See an account of the whole process by his own pen : " If 
any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might 
trust in the flesh, I more : circumcised the eighth day, of 



IN THE WORK OF THE LOKD. 93 

the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew 
of the Hebrews ; as touching the law, a Pharisee ; con- 
cerning zeal, persecuting the church ; touching the right- 
eousness which is in the law, blameless. But what things 
were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea 
doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excel- 
lency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord : for 
whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count 
them but dung, that I may win Christ" (Phil. iii. 4-8). 
The whole stock in trade of the self-righteous Pharisee is 
inventoried here. Himself delights to display the filthy 
rags, and make a show of them openly. He appropriates 
the shame to himself that the glory may rise to his 
Lord. He recounts how these were cast out at the great 
change, and counted no longer gain, but loss. When these 
are cast out, however, he does not remain empty. No 
man ever yet did cast out his own self-righteousness from 
mere dislike of it. As the money-changers were driven 
from the temple only at and by the entrance of Jesus, 
so the false confidences maintain their ground in a human 
heart until they are displaced by the presence of the Lord 
our righteousness. All these carefully gathered, tenderly 
cherished stores, he now counts loss ; but it is for Christ. 
He counted them precious as long as he knew none other. 
He never proposed to sell off all that he had, or anything 
that he had, until he fell in with the pearl of great price. 
The old adage is true in fact although defective in phil- 
osophy: Nature abhors a vacuum; and in nature, whether 
its material or spiritual department, a vacuum is never found. 
Each man is full either of his own things, or of Christ's. 



94 VESSELS CHOSEN, CHAEGED, AND USED 

The name of Christ is the precious thing wherewith 
the vessel is charged. So full was Paul of this treasure 
that he determined in his ministry to know none other. 
Whether the apostle be considered for the moment a 
vessel for bearing seed, or one for bearing water, the re- 
sult is the same. It is of the things of Christ that the 
ministering Spirit takes and gives to the disciples, that 
they may drop the seed into broken hearts, or offer cold 
water to thirsty souls. There is none other name given 
under heaven among men whereby we must be saved. 

V. To bear my name before Gentiles, and kings, and 
the 'people of Israel. The name of Christ is the treasure 
which the vessel bears ; to the Gentiles, and kings, and 
the people of Israel the vessel bears it. This bread of life, 
like the manna which fell in the wilderness, is given to 
be used, not to be hoarded. To be ever getting, ever 
giving, is the only way of keeping both the vessel and 
its treasure sweet. The more you give to others, the 
more you enjoy for your own use. The twelve had a 
fuller meal in that desert place after they had distributed 
the bread among five thousand than they would have had 
if they had dined alone. Christ is with his people still, 
to bless and multiply the portion of every cheerful 
giver. 

Certain classes are enumerated before whom Paul 
should be a witness for Christ. Before, or more hterally 
" in the face of " these, this vessel must bear that precious 
name. The form of the expression indicates that in this 
ministry self-denying courage is required. Perhaps the 



IN THE WORK OF THE LOED. 95 

series, in this respect, constitutes a climax. It is easier 
to speak of Christ and his salvation to the Gentiles, than 
to kings, and easier to speak of him to kings than to his 
own chosen people. Israel's enmity against the Lord's 
Anointed was keener than that of the surrounding nations. 
He came unto his own, and his own received him not; 
but to some, even of these, he gave power to become the 
sons of God. Paul himself was one of the first-fruits of 
the seed of Abraham, and a harvest has been gathered 
since. To this day, however, the nation in its main bulk 
remains more obstinate than the heathen in refusing to 
have this Man to reign over them. 

In our day, too, there are various classes and characters 
of men who need the testimony of Jesus. Those who 
possess it should be prepared to bear it about in every 
place, and hold it forth in any company. This witness 
in his day was not ashamed of the gospel of Christ ; 
would that all our Christianity were as honest and as 
strong ! If we quail where the majority profess to be on 
our side, what would have become of us if our lot had 
been cast in the beginning of the gospel, when its dis- 
ciples were obliged to confront an adverse world ? May 
the Lord increase our faith, and increase, too, that which 
hangs next beneath it in Peter's golden chain of graces, — 
the courage to confess our Saviour before friend and foe. 

But, perhaps, we should not speak of more courage 
being required to maintain a good confession in one 
place, and less in another : for with God it is as easy to 
keep the ocean within its bed, as to balance a dewdrop 
on a blade of grass ; and the same principle rules in the 



96 VESSELS CHOSEN, CHARGED, AND USED 

distribution of grace to disciples of Christ. Without it 
the strongest is not sufficient for anything ; with it the 
feeblest is sufficient for all. Our martyr forefathers, who, 
by the peace of God ruling in their hearts, were enabled to 
make good confession at the stake, would, if left to them- 
selves, have denied their Lord under the blandishments of a 
godless drawing-room. To the eye of sense the faithful- 
ness of this generation is not tested by so severe a strain ; 
but the difference lies mainly in the outward appearance. 
The human heart is still as deceitful, and the god of this 
world still as powerful, as in the days of old. In our 
own strength we cannot overcome the least temptation; 
through Christ that strengtheneth us we can conquer the 
greatest. 

Not before Gentiles, and kings, and the people of 
Israel, are we summoned to bear witness for Christ : but 
we stand daily in a place and presence where the temp- 
tation to deny him is equally strong. A Christian young 
man in a great workshop, a Christian young lady in a gay 
and fashionable family, is either carried away hke chaff 
before the wind, or stands fast by a modern miracle of grace. 

We are so many vessels, labelled on the outside with 
the name of Christ ; what we are reaUy charged with 
may not be seen at a distance, or discovered in a day. 
Those, however, who stand near these vessels often oi 
long, will by degrees find out what they contain. By 
its occasional overflowings, especially when it is unex- 
pectedly and violently shaken, the secret will be revealed. 
Some are looking on who do not believe that the Spirit 
which fills us is the Spirit of Christ ; and they lie in 



IN THE WORK OF THE LORD. 97 

wait for evidence to prove their opinion true. For their 
own sakes, let them find it false. Before them bear the 
name of Christ, when needful, on your lips, the Spirit of 
Christ in your heart, the example of Christ in your 
conduct. 

But the word which requires that we should be 
witnesses unto Christ is peculiarly apt to slip from our 
grasp, especially when the specimen exhibited is some 
eminent saint. An indolent, earthly selfishness, under 
pretence of humility, like Satan in an angel's dress, 
cunningly suggests the distinction between a common 
ungifted man and the great apostle of the Gentiles. 
He was a- worthy witness ; but what could we do, 
although we did our best ? If you are a sinner forgiven 
through the blood of Christ, in the greatest things 
Paul and you are equal ; unequal only in the least. In 
the things that reach up to heaven and through eternity, 
there is no perceptible difference between you ; the 
distinction is confined to the earth and tima You, a 
lost sinner, get pardon and eternal life in God's dear Son, 
and what does he get more ? Getting as much from your 
Lord, you may love your Lord as much. In the economy 
of grace a shallower vessel serves nearly every purpose as 
well as a deeper, if both are full of Christ. 

In nature, the shallowest lake, provided it be full, 
sends up as many clouds to heaven as the deepest, for 
the same sunlight beams equally on both their bosoms. 
This law may often be seen at work in the spiritual 
kingdom. "Glory to God in the highest" rises in a stream 
as strong and pure from a sinner saved who lays out one 



98 VESSELS CHOSEN, CHARGED, AND USED 

talent in a lowly sphere, as from a sinner saved who 
wields ten talents in the sight of an applauding world. 
Nay, more ; as a lake within the tropics, though shallow, 
gives more incense to the sky than a polar ocean of 
unfathomable depth, so a Christian of few gifts, whose 
heart lies open fair and long to the Sun of righteousness, 
is a more effectual witness than a man of greater capacity 
who lies not so near, and looks not so constantly to Jesus. 

For a concluding lesson specially suited to the times, 
let us lay aside the particular idea of a vessel, and take 
up again the more general idea of an instrument; for both 
alike lie in the terms of the text. 

In the coarser work of breaking up his own way at 
first, God freely uses the powers of natui*e and the 
passions of wicked men ; but for the nicer touches near 
the finishing, he employs more sensitive instruments. A 
work of righteousness is about to be done upon the person 
of a Greek jailer at Philippi. Mark the method of the 
omniscient Worker, A strong, coarse tool he seizes first, 
and therewith strikes the hard material, with the view of 
carrying it through a certain preparatory stage ; then 
with an instrument of more ethereal temper and keener 
edge, which he had previously placed within reach, he 
completes the process. The earthquake which shook the 
foundations of the prison rent the outer searing of the 
jailer's conscience, and made an open path into his soul. 
In such work the powers of nature could no further go. 
What an earthquake could not do, God did by a renewed 
human heart, and gentle, loving human lips. From the 
same chosen vessel that Ananias had visited at Damascus, 



IN THE WORK OF THE LORD. 99 

the ointment was poured forth which healed the jailer's 
wound. " Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou 
shalt he saved/' said Paul ; the rude heathen believed and 
lived. 

Thus God works to-day both in secret individual con- 
versions, and in wide-spread national revivals. Bank- 
ruptcies, storms, diseases, wars, are charged to batter down 
the defences, and then living disciples go in by the breach 
to convert a kingdom or win a soul. Missionaries seldom 
begin tlie work, and providences never complete it. Each 
kind of instrument is best in its own place and time. Do 
not go forward without providential openings, lest you 
should spend your strength for nought ; and do not 
neglect providential openings, lest the lost opportunity 
should never return. 

The inanimate machinery of war, more powerful now 
than in any former generation, may suffice to break down 
the walls of the enemy's stronghold ; but these engines 
that pioneer so powerfully cannot capture the fortress ; 
loyal, living men, must enter and take possession in their 
sovereign's name. This order is adopted in the Christian 
warfare. Wherever the strife of men or the judgment of 
God has made an opening, good soldiers of Jesus Christ 
spring in and take possession for their Lord. 

Thus, when war and treaties opened China, the 
Christian Church leapt in. Within those mysterious 
barriers Christ is now by his chosen instruments closing 
in a decisive struggle with the strong man who for ages 
has kept his house there in peace. By the rents which 
the earthquake insurrection has left in the framework of 



100 VESSELS CHOSEN, CHARGED, AND USED 

Indian society, our missionaries may perhaps get deeper 
into the nation's life than heretofore. In Italy, too, 
while the thunder and the lightning are doing their 
terrible work. Christians lie on the watch, read}^ to enter 
with the still, small word as soon as the storm is spent. 
Already the Man of Sin has been compelled to slacken his 
grasp, and several provinces are free. The time seems near 
when chosen vessels full of Christ may bear their treasure 
through the broken barriers, and pour it out in Italy — 
pour it out in Rome, the same unchanged treasure that 
Paul bore long ago to the same place. A long barren 
night has passed over Italy, but the word of God liveth 
and abideth for ever. By the very fact of making 
openings, God is beckoning for instruments to bring it in. 
But the same order prevails and the same laws rule in 
the minutest scale of individual hfe. It is not only 
China, or India, or Italy that is long closed against Christ, 
and at last opened by commotions within or assaults from 
without. This neighbour who has lived long without 
God in the world, and fenced himself all round against 
the inroad of serious thoughts, has been shaken as if by 
an earthquake. It may be the insolvency of a bank, or 
the death of a brother ; it may be the encroachment of 
disease in his own frame, or the spiritual awakening of 
sinners near him ; it may be any one of these, or of other 
similar shakings, that makes a breach in the defences, and 
leaves an opening right through into the soul. Now is 
the time for those finer instruments which Jesus loves to 
use. Vessels who bear Christ's name, bear it in at that 
opening now. Do T^ot stand and say we are not great 



IN THE WORK OF THE LORD. 101 

vessels ; little vessels will go more easily in, and little 
vessels, full of Christ, will do the work there as well as 
great ones. 

This is what we need— a great number of Christians 
with Christ in them, penetrating society in every direc- 
tion like veins in the living body. If these are constantly 
charged, and so gently, imperceptibly pressing everywhere 
alike on the retaining walls, they will pour in the pre- 
cious name that fills them, wherever and whenever an 
opening is made. The drops that trickle unseen in foot- 
prints obey the same law that rules the rivers and the 
sea. These drops yielding to that law, constitute the 
rivers and keep the ocean full. Every forgiven sinner is 
a vessel ; and by many little vessels must the work be 
done. 

Has Christ visited you, brother, and freely taken all 
your sin away? It shows, you think, that you had need 
of the Lord ; yea, but it shows also another thing— that 
the Lord has need of you. 



102 THE USE AND ABUSE OF THE WORLD. 

VII. 
THE USE AND ABUSE OF THE WORLD. 

*' And they that use this world, as not abusing it: for the fashion of this world 
passeth away." — 1 CoR. vii. 31. 

The Christian life is, in many respects, an anomaly on 
the earth. Its principles and experiences do not all lie 
within the analogy of nature. It is, in a great measm-e, 
made up of apparent incongruities and contradictions. It 
is at once strength and weakness ; riches and poverty ; 
living and dying. This union of contraries in the expe- 
rience of believers is set forth with great fulness and 
precision in 2 Cor. vi. 8-10. 

The place of Christians is peculiar, and such also should 
their character be. There is a strange mixture of heaven 
and earth in every renewed man. If we have been 
made new creatures in Christ, we are by one birthright 
heirs of death, and by another heirs of glory. In a cer- 
tain sense there are two natures in every disciple of 
Christ ; he has been created and created again, — born and 
born again. He has gotten a new nature, and yet much 
of the old nature adheres to him still. He is in the 
world as the place of a temporary sojourning, but not of 
it in origin, aim, or end. It is no part of a Christian's 
duty to aim at singularity ; and yet there is much of 
singularity about a Christian, 

Last summer a youth, approaching the stature, but far 



THE USE AND ABUSE OF THE WORLD. 103 

beneath the age or strength of manhood,- made a tour 
through the picturesque scenery on the south-west coast 
of Ireland. In dress and manners there was nothing to 
distinguish him from other well-bred, well-educated young 
men, and at first the people took no notice of the stranger ; 
but as soon as it became known that he was the Queen's 
son, the heir of the kingdom, multitudes congregated to 
gaze upon him as he passed. The sons of God, the heirs 
of an everlasting kingdom, tread the path of life at our 
side. When their character, and position, and prospecte 
are known, they become a wonder unto many. If the 
rank, which through the better birth-right they have 
attained, were more distinctly recognised, they would 
receive more respect from their neighbours, and pay more 
to themselves. Do you observe that man with bare, bald 
head, shining unsheltered beneath a noonday sun,, as he 
hews a stone by the edge of the street ; and that man 
with sharp, pale visage, and weary, worn-out expression, 
poring over complicated account books, in the corner of a 
manufactory^; and that matron, with one infant on her 
knee, and another at her foot, striving, with partial suc- 
cess, both to keep the children cheerful, and prepare in 
time the toiling father's food ; and that hale young woman 
cheerfully doing menial work in an opulent metropolitan 
dwelling, consenting to leave her aged mother in a cottage 
a hundred miles away, that she may win both that 
mother's bread and her own ; — these, being born again, 
are of the Royal family ; these are already on the very 
steps of the throne ; there is but one fleeting breath, and 
that their own, between them and the kingdom. 



104 THE USE AND ABUSE OF THE WORLD. 

How small are all the distinctions which depend upon 
the first birth ; how great the one which depends upon 
the second ! 

The text suggests — A proper Use of the world, An im- 
proper Abuse of it, and A specific Keason for choosing 
one of the two alternatives ; but it will be practically more 
convenient to reverse this order in the process of illustra- 
tion and application, thus : — 

I. The reason why we should not abuse this world . 
" For the fashion of this world passeth away." 

II. The abuse of this world which the text forbids : 
Not abusing it." 
III. The use of this world which the text permits and 
enjoins: "They that use this world." 

I. The Reason why we should not abuse this world : 
the fashion of it passes away ; literally, the scene changes. 
As the statement of a fact, it is obviously true ; as a 
reason given for adopting the prescribed course, it is cer- 
tainly sufficient. 

The world itself is a solid and stable thing. Its face 
and furnishing have already undergone great changes, 
and are destined yet, perhaps soon, to undergo more ; but 
its matter and the laws which rule it are fixed. Subject 
ever to the will of its eternal Maker, the world, in all 
its principal characteristics, is to the passing generations 
of men an unchanging world. To us the hiUs are ever- 
lasting hills. The same mountain-tops point toward the 



THE USE AND ABUSE OF THE WORLD. 105 

sky to-day that seemed to touch it when we were chil- 
dren. The same plain stretches out from the Pyramids 
that the Pharaohs saw from their summits, and the same 
silent river is gliding past. The same sun shines now on 
us that arrested Adam's eye when first it opened. The 
world does not pass away from man ; the inhabitant is 
often changed ; the habitation remains the same. 

But though the world remains the same, it does not 
remain the same world to me. The green grass looks 
not so lightsome when those whom I loved the most are 
laid beneath it. Light is sweet ; but oh, some eyes that 
were wont to look upon it along with me are closed now. 
This is not the world on which I trod so lightly when I 
was a child. It was a brighter, hopefuller, happier world 
then. Its solid substance under my feet remains, doubt- 
less, as it was ; but the fashion of it has more than once 
passed away since I first knew it. In the morning of 
life's day, even sorrows when they came were like sum- 
mer clouds, — the sun soon sparkled through again. How 
sweet and calm the evenings were ; how gladsome the 
risings after rest ! The lark rose earlier and soared 
higher ; but not more light its song, not more blithe its 
heart than mine. That fashion of the world went out, 
and the one that came in after it, although still bright, 
was burdened more with care, and oftener tinged with 
sadness. Again the fashion changed, and the world that 
was once an easy, leisurely going world, became hard and 
busy. Faster and faster it moved, and I moved mth it, 
until I became giddy with the whirl. The days became 
shorter than they once had been ; even the years seemed 



106 THE USE AND ABUSE OF THE WORLD, 

to be nearly over ere they were well begun. But at this 
stage, although the world moves quickly, the man keeps 
pace with it. At the next change of fashion the breath- 
less runner is left behind. He cannot move fast enough, 
and others will not wait for him. Heavy is the 
foot of the pilgrim, and heavy the earth on which it 
treads. 

But, besides those which time inexorably and uni- 
formly brings to all, there are other changes peculiar to 
the experience of each. The owner of a beautiful estate 
on the margin of a Scottish river was conducting a visitor 
through the parks and groves which surrounded his 
scarcely finished mansion. A stormy winter had just 
passed away, and the glad landscape was hastily putting 
on its green summer garment. At a bend in the path a 
lofty beech-tree suddenly hove in sight, wanting one 
hemisphere of its once symmetrical and stately head. Half 
way up the straight, smooth, glossy stem, it had in its 
youth parted into two equal boughs. These two had 
grown long together, and together in parallel lines had 
shot far upward in the sky. Each filled its own side 
with branches, and both locked in a perennial embrace, 
constituted one goodly sphere of green, proudly waving 
in the wind, or sweetly glittering in the sunshine, as the 
changing seasons went and came. In the last winter's 
latest, fiercest blast, one of these twin boughs had been 
rent ofi". It had fallen to the ground and been carried all 
away, for no vestige of it was visible in the neighbour- 
hood. The splintered rent, whence the storm had 
wrenched it, stared upon the passenger, telling all too 



THE USE AND ABUSE OF THE WORLD. 107 

plainly the tale of woe; and the survivor, bare on the 
side where his marrow grew, seemed, notwithstanding 
the strength of his stem and the verdure of his branches, 
a stricken, widowed thing. " See," said the visitor, giv- 
ing way to a sudden impulse, " see, ' the emblem of a 
husband standing alone in the world, after death has torn 
away the wife of his youth ! ' "" Then first a stifled sigh 
revealed to the speaker that he had unconsciously hurt, 
by touching, a wound still green in his companion's 
side. 

This is only one ; you may as well try to number 
the spai'ks that fly upward, as the sorrows that lie in the 
lot of man. The surface of the world is all and always 
shifting. The moral instability of the earth, in the his- 
tory of its inhabitants, is like the physical instability of 
the water. Humanity in the mass is " like the troubled 
sea when it cannot rest." That man is in a pitiable plight 
whose soul cleaves to the fashion of this world; for it is 
continually moving, and every movement rends him. 
The redeemed of the Lord, even in the present world, 
obtain a firmer footing and enjoy a brighter hope : " He 
shall not be afraid of evil tidings; his heart is fixed trust- 
ing in the Lord" (Ps. cxii. 7). Well might he remain calm 
in the tumult of a shaking world, whose treasure lay safe 
beyond it. But, woe's me for the multitude who have 
invested their all in this falling stock ! How many liv- 
ing victims are kept in continual torture, where the In- 
quisition is known only as a dark shadow of the past ! 
Clinging to wealth, when wealth is taking wings to flv 
away; clinging to the trappings of beauty, when th 



108 THE USE AND ABUSE OF THE WOKLD. 

beauty which they once adorned has gone; clinging to 
the gaiety of youth, when age, unwelcome, unconfessed, 
is stealing quietly, quickly on ; — they not only fail to taste 
the sweets which lie in all the successive conditions of life, 
but feel in each a sting. Forewarned, forearmed. If you 
allow your heart-strings to twine around the fashion of 
the world, so that you and it are substantially one, you 
are torn and tortured every day you live; for the fashion 
of the world is moving past you, as surely, as constantly, 
as resistlessly, as the diurnal revolution of this material 
globe. The only possible method of living either plea- 
santly or safely on a shifting scene is to sit loosely on its 
surface. If your heart be in heaven, and the weight of 
your hope habitually leaning there, the world cannot hurt 
you although it should slip from beneath your feet. 

II. The abuse of this world which the text forbids. 
There is no danger of mistake here as to the meaning of 
words. The easiest interpretation of the terms is, in this 
case, also the best. " The world" which should be 
used and not abused, is this earth, with all that the 
Creator has spread around it or stored within it for the 
benefit of man. 

When the gifts are turned aside from their wise and 
kind intent, the Giver takes it ill. A specific complaint 
on this subject is addressed to Israel through the prophet 
Ezekiel (xvi. 19): " My meat also which I gave thee, 
fine flour, and oil, and honey, wherewith I fed thee, thou 
hast even set it before them [idols] for a sweet savour." 
The Christian Church at this day Lies as open to that 



THE USE AND ABUSE OF THE WORLD. 109 

tender rebuke. Our Father's bounties are wasted on 
miscellaneous idols. 

The abuses of the world cannot be all named and num- 
bered. They seem to be as many and as various as the 
species of plants that grow in the ground, or of insects 
that creep on its surface. Let two or three of them, 
taken at random as specimens, pass in review before us. 

Day and night are precious constituents of " this world," 
as a provision made by God for the good of men. To 
shuffle them out of their places is to abuse them. An 
assembly of dancing men and women in a heated hall, 
a merchant leaning over his ledger in the counting- 
house, a student before his lamp in the silent chamber, 
are all guilty of abusing the world, if they occupy 
the long dark night, each with his own species of exer- 
tion, and sleep on the morrow while the sun is running 
his race rejoicing. Necessity or mercy, in cases suddenly 
emerging, consecrates occasional night work, as it conse- 
crates occasional work on the Sabbath day; but by choice 
to spend the night in work and the day in rest, is an act 
of rebellion against the King of kings, whether the 
worker be pursuing pleasure, or gain, or knowledge. It 
is an aggravated case of breach of trust. It is to accuse 
the Creator of a blunder in alternately drawing a curtain 
round the world for rest, and hanging the sun in heaven 
for light to the labourers. The wild birds among the 
branches keep the Creator's law, and enjoy the reward 
of obedience in better health and livelier spirits. At 
night-fall they lay their heads beneath their wings, and 
are ready to meet the dawning day with songs. 



110 THE USE AND ABUSE OF THE WOELD. 

The fruitful earth is systematically and to a great 
extent compelled to minister to the vice of men. By 
human art the juices of the ground are converted into 
tobacco, opium, and distilled spirits. These products, in 
their main bulk, are consumed in kindling an abnormal 
appetite, and then supplying the demand. The earth's 
own children, by a perverse ingenuity, contrive to draw 
poison from their mother's breast. 

Tobacco wastes the juices of both the earth and man. 
It " scourges " the soil on which it grows, and the living 
body that absorbs its virus. The nations of the Conti- 
nent have outrun us in this indulgence, but we seem to 
be following fast in their steps. Wasting money which 
might be better employed, and generally damaging, more 
or less, the mind and body of the consumer, it is in itself 
an evil, and often paves tlie way to worse. A converted 
man, whose bodily ear this notice cannot now reach, told 
me that, having been addicted in the days of his ignor- 
ance to drinking and smoking, and having from the day 
of his spiritual enlightenment totally abandoned both, he 
found the appetite for whisky destroyed at the end of 
three days, while the appetite for tobacco subjected him 
to an agony of three months. Should any man whom 
God's Son has made free willingly article himself for life 
to such a tyrant? But I hear one saying: "A matter 
so small ought not to have place in a sermon." There are 
smaller things than this in the Bible, and He who made 
it knows what it should contain. Nothing would please 
the adversary better th^n that in religious teaching we 
should confine our view to o^reat affairs, and shut out from 



THE USE AND ABUSE OF THE WOELD. Ill 

our regard the thousands of little things whereof, mainly, 
human life consists. "Whether, therefore, ye eat or 
drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." 
That divine maxim, faithfully applied, would make short 
work of the expensive, useless, filthy practi(3e, as far as 
the true disciples of Christ are concerned. 

I have been informed by those who have visited the 
poppy fields of India, that nothing in nature can. be love- 
lier to look upon. The best land, in the most sheltered 
situation, is appropriated to the cultivation of the plant. 
Glowing in the brightest colours beneath a vertical sun, 
it attracts and enchants the traveller. Obedient earth 
and sky surrender their power and beauty to the skill of 
men. But ah I beneath the petals of that gay flower a 
•seed is swelling, which, through demoniac art, germinates 
into one of the heaviest curses of our kind. Having, by 
aid of public capital, drawn the poison from the soil of 
India, we induce the Chinese, partly by our superior 
power, and partly by their own baser passions, to take 
it off our hands. The whole system is " earthly, sensual, 
devilish." How long, O Lord, holy and true, wilt thou 
permit this nation to possess a land which it perverts ! 

Opium is a most precious medicine. Many sufferers 
have blessed God for it as the means of alleviating pain 
which could not be removed. This use of it is freely per- 
mitted, as the trees of the garden were placed at the dis- 
posal of primeval man ; but when we, discontented with 
life as God has appointed it for us in the body, presume 
to change its conditions by stimulants applied to the brain, 
we seem to repeat, in its spirit, the first sin, profanely 



112 THE USE AND ABUSE OF THE WORLD. 

grasping a forbidden kind of life, and reaping death as 
our reward. 

At home, too, in a similar way, we abuse the world, 
by converting a large portion of the grain which it brings 
forth for the food of man, into a stimulant which is chiefly 
employed in ministering to his vices. 

Civilized nations have long abused in the gross a 
whole continent of the world. Africa is a part of 
God's earth. It is designed and fitted for use. It 
has in many parts a bright climate, a fertile soil, and a 
profuse vegetation. It possesses great interior lakes, and 
broad, ever-flowing rivers. The constitution of its inhabit- 
ants accords with their circumstances. Instead of 
buying from the people the products of the soil, so stimu- 
lating arts and industry, we bought the people — the weak 
from the strong, — so stimulating war and rapine. A 
grand principle of the divine government is expressed in 
these words of Jesus, " The poor ye have always with 
you." The poor are left with us for use. The use is two- 
fold : to test whether there be true brotherly love in us, and 
to supply it with a field for exercise if it do exist. A con- 
tinent destitute of the gospel and civilization is left lying 
alongside of a continent which possesses both. From heaven 
the Eighteous Governor looks down to see how the rich 
will treat the poor. Alas for the result ! Africa lies un- 
cultivated, and Africans are enslaved ! " These things hast 
thou done, and I kept silence ; thou thoughtest that I 
was altogether such an one as thyself : but I wiU reprove 
thee, and set them in order before thine eyes" (Ps. 1. 21). 

But in actual experience the abuse of the world runs down 



THE USE AND ABUSE OF THE WORLD. 113 

into the minutest transactions of individual life. He abuses 
the world who, by playing deep stakes in some of the danger- 
ous lotteries of life, loses the lordly estate which he inherited 
from his forefathers ; and he who spends at night on 
stimulants the half-crown which his hard hands have won 
by the labour of a day, leaving his children naked and 
hungry in their miserable home. Nor is the sin confined 
to cases of positive and clearly-marked prodigality. We 
need to have the motto, " Waste not, want not," inscribed 
on the walls, both of territorial magnates and pros- 
perous citizens ; and it should be inscribed both up stairs 
and down. To consume more than we need and use, 
whether it be done by rich or poor, whether it be done 
in food or clothing, is to abuse the world which God has 
kindly framed and fitted for the use of men. 

III. The use of this world which the text permits and 
enjoins : " They that use the world." The text suggests 
not an exercise on spiritual subjects, but the common life 
of a spiritual man. It teUs not how those who possess 
only the present world may obtain the right to a better, 
but how those should employ the present who already 
possess the right to a better world. 

Observe how God uses this world, that we may fall in 
with his purpose, and yield ourselves as instruments in 
working out his plan. 

In some portions of space stars are so thickly strewn, 
that to the naked eye, or with ordinary telescopes, they 
seem little white clouds upon the sky ; and it is only 
when instruments of greater power are applied that they 

H 



114 THE USE AND ABUSE OF THE WORLD. 

are discovered to be a multitude of separate worlds. 
Thousands of these orbs so situated as to be taken in at 
one view, appear like shreds of mist lying deeper in hea- 
ven than those which wreath the mountain tops. All 
these worlds together are " a cloud of witnesses '' unto 
God, and our world is one of them. 

For this one he has provided a nobler use than for 
any, for all others. He has made it the dwelling-place 
of creatures formed after his own image, and capable of 
communion with himself; but the grandest use of the habi- 
tation was made after the inhabitant fell by sin. Leav- 
ing behind all the shining worlds which pass and repass 
each other in the heavens, like ships upon the sea, the 
Redeemer fixed his eye, his foot on this. Here the Son 
of God lived, and suffered, and rose from the dead. Here 
the price of redemption was paid ; here the sons and 
daughters of the Lord obtain their birthright ; here the 
heirs are prepared for their inheritance. Such are the 
purposes for which the Father employs this world ; and 
for these chiefly the dear child values it. If we do not 
thus use it, all its other uses will be to us in vain. 
" What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world 
and lose his soul ? " When from the verge of life you 
look back on the place of your sojourn these many years, 
if that dwelling-place has not been your birth-place it 
will seem your grave. " Except a man be born again he 
cannot see the kingdom of God." 

This earth shines only in the sun-light : if it were 
dark it would be also barren. So, morally for man, the 
world in which we live owes its beauty and its worth to 



THE USE AND ABUSE OF THE WORLD. 115 

the light which reaches it from heaven. If there were 
no work of redemption, and no word of God to make it 
known, this would be only a kind of brutes' world where 
people would eat, and drink, and die. *•' To him that 
hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance;" when 
we have obtained the chief use of this world, ten thou- 
sand other uses spring up within our reach, and we may 
safely enjoy them all. 

Christians both may and must use the world. In 
connection with it there is a privilege to be enjoyed, and 
a duty to be performed. 

1. They may use it. Practical religion does not con- 
sist in denying ourselves the use of temporal good, or in 
tasting it with terror. Every creature of God is good, 
and should be received, not rejected. It is one mark of 
Antichrist, that he commands men to abstain from meats 
which God has provided for their use. When we become 
new creatures in Christ we are not thereby debarred 
from the fulness of the earth and sea ; then we possess 
them by a better title, and therefore enjoy them more. 
A Christian, with a clear mind and a good conscience, 
tastes more sweetness in this world than he who has no 
other portion. Given : two men who have each a loaf 
of equal quality and size to-day, while the one has nothing 
more, and the other has a fortune behind it ; should he 
enjoy less to-day this day's provision who has exhaust- 
less stores to fall back upon when it is done ? He 
enjoys it more. Peace of conscience sweetens daily 
bread. 

The relations of the family, for example, are touched 



116 THE USE AND ABUSE OF THE WORLD. 

in the context. These constitute some of the most pre- 
cious uses of this world. He who has in the regenera- 
tion entered the family of God, has not thereby forfeited 
his place or his rights in the families of men. He who 
rains manna round our tents in the wilderness is not dis- 
pleased when we gather and eat our fill. It is a poor 
compliment to a father's heart to imagine that the child 
will propitiate his favour by refusing to take the benefit 
of his gifts. Fathers of our flesh would not thank us for 
our slavish dread ; beware of attributing such a mind to 
our Father in heaven. " The Lord," we know, " loveth 
a cheerful giver;" but there is another thing which he 
loves as well, although, perhaps, he finds as seldom, and 
that is, a cheerful receiver. Make one thing sure, that 
it is the use of the world, not the abuse of it ; and then 
use it with a will. The rule is not, that godless people 
enjoy the world, and Christians wait for their portion in 
another. Christians, although they have their portion in 
another, — because they have their portion in another, taste 
with less alloy the sweets of every comfort which God 
has mingled in their present lot. 

2. They must use it. Don't permit the riches, for 
example, to lie so long still that they shall rust. The 
rust will hurt your flesh at the time, and witness against 
you in the judgment. Such is the rule for aU the talents. 
Eiches are not the only species of possession which is 
liable to rust for want of exercise. Whatever God may 
have given you of personal qualification, or social position, 
or material means, take the use of it yourself, and let 
your neighbours participate in the benefit. 



THE USE AND ABUSE OF THE WORLD. ] 1 7 

As money is the medium of exchange for all the com- 
modities which men reckon valuable, it is commonl}^ and 
not inconveniently allowed to represent the " world " in 
the sense of our text. Too many of those who, in this 
sense, possess the world, decline to use it. They toil to 
gather and keep it, that others may use it after they are 
dead. We do not know whether those who may come 
after us will be wise men or fools. Perhaps they may 
misappropriate the wealth which we have collected with 
so much care. It is a safe maxim to employ it as it 
comes on good objects, lest after lying long idle it should 
be dissipated by others on objects that are evil. It is 
more blessed to give than to bequeath. 

But in vain do you tell a human being that the fashion 
of this world passeth away, if you have nothing more to 
tell. A drowning man will grasp straws ; and you can- 
not put an end to the useless effort by standing on the 
liver's brink and proving that straws will not avail to 
make his body buoyant. Notwithstanding your demon- 
stration he will grasp them still. How shall we persuade 
him to let them go? Heave him a life-buoy, and no 
persuasion will be necessary. When he feels the contact 
of the better preserver, he will throw away the worse. 

If you knew certainly that this solid earth would 
melt to-morrow, and become a sinking sea, it would be 
in vain that you should go forth to these teeming streets 
a,nd warn the wretched multitude not to lean their weight 
upon the world. They have nothing else to lean upon. 
So, no demonstration of the world's changefulness will 
keep a human soul from cleaving to its dust. Nothing 



118 THE USE AND ABUSE OF THE WORLD. 

but faith's possession of the "better portion can wean our 
hearts from the worse. As there is now no condemnation to 
them that are in Christ Jesus, so there is now no cause 
for fear. The fashion of the world does not sustain them 
while it remaineth, and therefore does not disturb them 
when it passeth away. 



ALL THINGS AKE YOURS, WHEN YOU ARE CHRIST's. 119 



VIII. 

ALL THINGS ARE YOURS, WHEN YOU ARE 
CHRIST'S. 

*' All things are yours ; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or 
life, or death, or things present, or things to come ; all are yours ; and ye 
are Christ's ; and Christ is God's." — 1 Cor, iii. 21-23. 

A GREAT gulf is fixed between God and man. Sin is 
the separator. The fallen faU farther and faster by a 
law, as a planet world would fall away from the sun, if 
the unseen bond should burst that heretofore had held it. 

Revelation rends the covering veil, and lo ! a chain 
depending from the throne of God stretches across the 
void, and holds up the dislocated world. Its links are 
few ; but its structure is beautiful, its material precious, 
its power divine. Come and see this golden chain of 
mercy that hangs from heaven, and touches the earth at 
our feet. The sight should make us glad, — more glad 
than Noah was when he beheld the bow of promise 
leaning on the bosom of the black thunder-cloud that 
seemed to threaten another flood. 

The exultant apostle begins with that which lies next 
himself^ and traces all good, possessed or expected by 
men, upward through the well-ordered covenant to the 
sovereign gift of God. He begins with the lowest step, 
and climbs upward to the source of all. It will suit our 
purpose better to begin where he leaves off. When by 



120 ALL THINGS ARE YOURS 

the Spirit, witnessing through Paul, we have been lifted 
up to the great white throne in the heavens where mercy 
has her dwelling-place, we shall take our departure thence, 
and follow the course of mercy's outgoings toward the 
children of men. The text leads us direct to the upper 
spring that we may learn how love is let down upon a 
lost world. 

I. The highest link : " Christ is God's/' 
II. The next under it : " Ye are Christ's.'' 
III. The lowest : "All things are yours." 

I. Christ is God's. This is the greatest outgoing of 
infinite love. 

The Creator rejoices in all his works, but he has a 
special and peculiar interest in man. When the work of 
creation, as to its bulk, was nearly done, — when light had 
chased away the darkness, and order succeeded con- 
fusion, — when the sun and stars shone down from heaven, 
and flowers answered them from earth, with lesser light 
but equal loveliness, — ^when living beings were moving in 
earth, and sea, and air, each residing in its own element, 
and acting according to its kind, — creation was not yet 
complete — the Creator was not yet satisfied The sixth 
and last day was nearly done, and yet in the eye of the 
omniscient Contriver there was a blank between himself 
and his work which made it aU duU and unprofitable. 
Every creature was very good of its kind, but as yet no 
part of the great organized material world could go into 
communion with its maker, God. The created world 



WHEN YOU ARE CHRIST'S. 121 

possessed no member of sufficient sensitiveness to feel its 
Creator's hand ; and the Creator found no point of 
sympathetic contact between himself, a spirit, and the 
material world which he had made. Creation had no 
head yet to know God, no heart to love him ; and God 
desires to be known and loved. 

Then was held that council in which humanity was 
planned. " Let us make man in our own image." 
Accordingly, in the image of God created he man. 
Allied to God by an intelligent mind and an im- 
mortal spirit, yet wedded to matter by the body in 
which he dwells, man was added to the upper edge of 
creation on creation's latest day, a link of communion 
between the Maker and his work. The world is now 
complete. In its whole and in its parts, " behold it is 
very good.'' 

As afterwards among the inferior creatures no help 
meet was found for man, so at the first no help meet was 
found among them for God In both cases a new creation 
was required to meet and satisfy the want. God at first, 
and afterwards man, needed a creature dependent and 
receptive, destitute of power, but capable of communion. 
There is some analogy between these two companionships. 
The man is the head of the woman ; Christ is the head 
of the man ; God is the head of Christ (1 Cor. xi. 8). 
The analogy we could not have ventured to suggest, but 
finding it suggested in Scripture, we can, partially at 
least, appreciate its truth. It is partly visible to us, but, 
like an iceberg floating in the ocean, the greater portion 
of it lies below in depths unseen. 



122 ALL THINGS ARE YOURS, 

The mystery of the fall came on. Satan assaulted with 
success the only vulnerable point in all God's material 
creation. The very excellence of man's nature rendered 
possible man's fall. It was necessary that the spirit 
destined to commune with God should be created free. 
At tliis opening it was possible for sin to enter ; at this 
opening entered sin. The connecting link was broken. 
The glad thanksgiving of a world could no longer rise 
like sweet incense to the eternal Father ; the love of the 
eternal Father could no longer thrill down through all 
that he had made. God on high was robbed of his 
creatures' homage ; the world in all its width was shut 
out from its Maker's smile, and left to wither. 

But though Satan was thus successful, he was not per- 
mitted to triumph. A stronger than he will destroy his 
works. But how ? Will the Almighty reduce to nothing 
the world that sin has defiled, and call another into being 
by his word ? No ; for reasons perfectly known to him- 
self, and partially patent even to our understanding, he 
determined not to destroy the damaged and create anew, 
but to redeem the lost, revive the dead, beautify the 
corrupted. To save, not to destroy, is the purpose of the 
Most High. 

But how ? When the creature called into being as a 
son has become an alien, — when the child, loathsome by 
spiritual death, can no longer be allowed to lie in the 
Father's bosom, — where shall God now find a MAN, holy 
as himself, to be his companion, and reciprocate his love? 
Here is the mystery revealed: Christ is God's. " Behold 
the man!" He dwells in the bosom of the Father, and 



WHEN YOU AEE CHRIST'S. 123 

yet is bound in brotherhood to the human family. This 
is the plan of redemption. This is the way of God back 
to the fallen, of the fallen back to God. God manifested 
in the flesh, the man Christ Jesus, is the one mediator. 
The Father cometh to no man ; no man cometh to the 
Father but by him. 

Satan did not triumph. The blow took effect, indeed; 
but the wound was curable. It did not overreach the 
Omniscient. In spite of it God found a holy Man through 
whom he might hold communion with his world, — a Man 
high enough to be his own fellow, and yet lowly enough 
to be a born brother of the lost in their adversity. 

" Behold my servant whom I uphold ; mine elect in 
whom my soul delighteth'' (Isa. xlii. 1). "This is my 
beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased'" (Matt. iii. 17). 
Unspeakable, inconceivable is the satisfaction of the 
Father in Christ as the substitute and advocate of men. 
The Father's delight in the Son incarnate is the upper- 
most hnk of the chain whereon all our hope for eternity 
hangs. How strong and sure it is ! Who can break it 
through? Who can burst in between God and God's 
dear Son, our Saviour ? Satan tried in the wilderness to 
separate between this Man and God, as in the garden he 
had separated between the first man and God. The 
Tempted triumphed, and the tempter fled. " The prince 
of this world cometh and hath nothing in me." " I and 
the Father are one.'" " Christ is God's.'" 

By the look of that holy Man the devils were driven 
away like chafl" before the wind ; " What have we to 
do with thee, thou Jesus?" It is impossible that the 



124 ALL THINGS ARE YOURS, 

Father should hate holiness ; it is impossible that the Son 
should do sin. By these two impossible things is made 
sure as tlie very being of God that first and greatest link 
in the chain of man s redemption—" Christ is God's." 

II. Ye are Chrisfs. Observe, Christians, the inti- 
mation is not that Christ is yours. That is a truth, and 
a truth of inexpressible preciousness, but another and 
different thing is revealed here. It is not that He is 
your portion, but that ye are his, — not that ye have 
gotten Christ, but that Christ has gotten you. 

In actual experience both the union and the delight 
in it are mutual : " My beloved is mine, and I am his.'* 
The vine holds the branch, and the branch holds the vine. 
These two are one attachment. The mother clings to 
her child, and the child, when danger threatens, clings to 
his mother. If the child were dead, the corpse would 
no longer clasp the mother ; but neither would the 
mother continue to clasp the corpse. These two graspings 
stand or fall together. You must have both or neither. 
Such is the relation between Christ the Eedeemer and 
Christians the redeemed. 

A disciple's present enjoyment may indeed correspond 
to the energy of the hold which he takes of Christ ; but 
his real safety depends on the might and constancy of 
the hold which Christ takes and keeps of him. " My 
beloved is mine," — there lies my present happiness ; but 
" I am his," — there lies my everlasting safety. A very 
slight breath of temptation may break asunder your love 
to Christ; but all the powers of darkness cannot overcome 



WHEN YOU ARE CHEIST's. 125 

his love to you. Who shall separate ? The heroic Paul 
sent forth the challenge to all the principalities and 
powers of creation. He boldly bade defiance to tribu- 
lation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, and 
sword ; to death and life ; to angels, principalities, and 
powers; to things present and things to come; to height 
and depth, and every other creature ; — let them all lay on 
their utmost strain, he did not fear it. But the ground 
of this man's confidence all the while lay in the constancy, 
not of himself, but of his Saviour. The bond which he 
felt compassing him about, — which he knew would hold 
him to the end, — was " the love of God which is in 
Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. viii. 39). This all- 
enduring, almighty love has its dwelling "in Christ 
Jesus." 

A British subject may be safe although surrounded by 
enemies in a distant land, — not that he has strength to 
contend alone against armed thousands, but because he 
is a subject of our queen. A despot on his throne, a 
horde of savages in their desert, have permitted a helpless 
traveller to pass unharmed, like a lamb among lions, — 
although, like lions looking on a lamb, they thirsted for 
his blood, — because they knew his sovereign's watchfulness, 
and feared his sovereign s power. The feeble stranger 
has a charmed life in the midst of his enemies, because a 
royal arm unseen, encompasses him as with a shield. 
The power thus wielded by an earthly throne may- 
suggest and symboHze the perfect protection of Omnipo- 
tence. A British subject's confidence in his queen may 
rebuke the feeble faith of a Christian "0 thou of 



126 ALL THINGS ARE YOURS, 

little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt ? '* What though 
there be fears within and fightings without. He who 
bought his people with his own blood cannot want his 
inheritance, and will not permit any enemy to wrest 
from his hand the satisfaction of his soul. The man, with 
a deceitful lieaTt and a darkened mind, a feeble frame 
and a slippery way, a fainting heart and a daring foe, 
— the man would stumble and fall ; but the member of 
Christ's body cannot drop off, — the portion of the 
Redeemer cannot be wrenched from his grasp. " Ye are 
his ; " Christ is the safety of a Christian. 

Redemption has two sides, an upper and a lower, both 
glorious ; but the upper side hath a glory that excelleth. 
The sinner gets a Saviour ; that is a precious truth, but 
it is the lower side of salvation, — the side most readily 
seen from our stand-point on the earth. The Saviour 
gets a portion to satisfy his soul, a people to rejoice in 
and to rejoice with, for ever; this is the upper side of 
the same salvation, as seen from heaven, and shining in 
the light of God. 

It is not easy for us in the body to get a glimpse of 
our own redemption on its higher and heavenward side. 
That aspect of it, on which its Author's eyes are ever set, 
is too lofty for our position, too bright for our vision. 
So accustomed are we, even in our more earnest moments, 
to the nearer aspect and more subdued light of the lower 
side, that we abide babes, unskilful in the deeper depart- 
ments of the word of righteousness. " What must I do 
to be saved?" comes readier to the lip of an anxious 
inquirer, than " What delight has Jesus in saving me ? " 



WHEN YOU ARE CHRIST'S. 127 

To think of ourselves as the portion wherein the Lord 
delights, is certainly consistent with thorough humility ; 
but pride lies, or seems to lie, so nearly in the same line, 
that we are afraid to aim so high lest we should miss 
the mark and diverge into presumptuous sin. To realize 
the joy with which my Redeemer rejoices over me, as his 
portion, and yet to know how vile I am, is difficult, and 
seems dangerous. He must have been a skilful archer 
who dared to point his arrrow at an apple on his own 
child's naked head, A man with a fainting heart and a 
faltering hand would abandon the chance of securing a 
great gain, rather than run the risk of incurring so great 
a loss. 

If our humility were very deep, we could afford to let 
our faith and hope soar very high. In the experience 
of a much-exercised saint in the olden time, so far from 
humility being incongruous with an exulting sense of 
being the valued possession of a redeeming Lord, the 
height of the soul's upward rebounding was ever in 
proportion to the lowness of its bowing down. See 
his fall and his rising again ; "so foolish was I, and igno- 
rant ; I was as a beast before thee ; nevertheless I am 
continually with thee ; thou hast holden me by my right 
hand. Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and after- 
wards receive me into glory" (Ps. Ixxiii. 22-24). 

"Ye are Christ's," — his property and possession. 
Think of this in two aspects : 1st, How he obtains his 
property ; and, 2d, How he will use it. 

1 . How he obtains his property ; how it becomes his. 

(1 .) By the sovereign gift of God. " As many as thou 



128 ALL THINGS AEE YOUES, 

hast given him." " Thine they were, and thou gavest 
them me," (John xvii.) The salvation of a Christian is 
no shallow thing that may be shuffled off in the shaking 
of the earth and the heavens when they shall pass away 
at their Makers presence. The root of the matter is 
not spread over the surface, striking only into the thin 
six thousand year layer of Time. It springs in the 
eternal purpose of the eternal God. It grows in the 
depths of his everlasting love. " I have loved thee with 
an everlasting love, therefore with loving-kindness have 
I drawn thee." That work within your heart, which, 
at a certain period of your pilgrimage, convinced you of 
sin, and drew you to Jesus, was not the first step of a 
process. Conversion is the issue of a precious thought 
towards man, which springs in an unfathomable deep. 
In pursuance of his own purpose, when the set time was 
come, he laid the bands of love upon your heart, that he 
might do all his pleasure and possess all his own. Fear not. 
Christian ; deep down beyond the reach of devils, beyond 
the search of angels, — deep in the love of God, in God 
who is love, springs and grows your eternal life. Eye 
hath not seen, ear hath not heard, mind hath not conceived 
where it takes its rise. Temptations may shake its pro- 
truding branches, but cannot blight its sustaining root. 

(2.) By the price of his own blood. Ye are not your 
own, ye are bought with a price. The good shepherd 
giveth his life for the sheep. Had Christ not paid the 
price, they would have remained under the wrath of 
God, and in the power of sin. The deliverance which he 
gives them free he dearly bought. He gave himself, the 



WHEN YOU ARE CHRIST S. 129 

just for the unjust. He took their place before God's 
justice, that they might have his place in God's compla- 
cent love. They are his — ^body and soul, time and 
eternity, understanding, will, and affections — ^all and only 
his. " Ye are not your own," is the very key-note of a 
Christian's life. 

(3.) By the rene^dng of the Holy Spirit. They are 
new creatures in Christ. Those who were withered 
branches ripe for the burning have been let into the true 
vine, and have gotten there "newness of life." " You 
hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins." 
The man has been bom again ; he " sees the kingdom of 
God" in grace now, and shall enter it soon. 

There is a correspondence between the sovereign gift 
of God on the one side, and the man's willing self-sur- 
render on the other. If you are Christ's, you have been 
given to him ; but there are two givings, — " on either side 
one, and Jesus in the midst." There is a giving in 
heaven and a giving on earth. God the Father gives 
you to Christ, and you give yourselves. These two fit 
into each other ; they never clash. When an ill-balanced 
mind stumbles at the decrees of God, and slackens effort, 
under a leaden dread that effort may be vain, the diffi- 
culty lies not in the province of religion. It is a philo- 
sophy, falsely so called, intruding into a domain not its 
own. It has no business here. Cast it out with, " Get 
thee behind me, Satan." Repent and believe the gospel. 
Tui-n and live. There is the command of God; there is 
the duty of men ? To leave that work undone, until we 
shall by searching find cut the secret things of God, is 
I 



180 ALL THINGS AEE YOUES, 

presumptuo-as disobedience. God is not -wont to arrange 
the relations of his worlds so that the higher of two 
correlatives shall clash against the lower, to the destruc- 
tion of both. How nicely, in nature, marrow fits into its 
marrow ; and will God's eternal counsel jar against God's 
Spirit working repentance in a human heart ? Stand on 
the seashore, and mark the rising tide. How laborious, 
and steadfast and patient, is its struggle upward and 
onward! Falling back every moment, every moment it 
returns to the charge with another and heavier stroke. 
Gaining this moment a little more than it lost the last, 
it encroaches slowly, surely on the beach. A planet 
high in heaven, satellite in waiting on our earth, is mean- 
time gliding noiselessly along its spiral course through 
space. The struggles of this rising weltering tide, and 
the course of that silent silver moon, exactly correspond. 
They never jar. So correspond the covenant purpose of 
God and those workings in a human soul that culminate 
in conversion to Christ. As the sea heaves and labom'S, 
throwing up its unnumbered waves, and pressing on till 
it reaches the limits of its tidal rising, so a human soul, 
agonizing for deliverance, puts forth all its energies, ac- 
cording to the laws of its own nature, heaving hither and 
thither among hopes and fears manifold and changeful as 
the waves of ocean, in the act of turning from sin and 
cleaving to Jesus. 

Ye are his, beloved, by two givings : The Father gives 
you, and you give yourselves to Christ ; and Christ receives 
you, and you are his. If you be not Christ's by yoiu* 
own willing surrender, you will never be his, apait from 



WHEN YOU AEE CHEIST's. 131 

your own will, by divine decree. On high is Almighty 
power, — below, a willing people ; and the blessed result 
is, ye, — disciples, coming like the dew of the morning, 
great in number and pure in heart, — "ye are Christ's!" 

2. How he will use his property. 

(1.) He will use his own as objects to exercise his 
kindness on. The good delight in doing good. The 
merciful love to have the needy within their reach. It 
is more blessed to give than to receive. That became 
the word of the Lord Jesus, because it was the experience 
of his heart. You make a benevolent man imhappy, if 
you remove the objects, or obstruct the channels of his 
compassion. The disciple who leaned closest on the breast 
of Jesus speaks most about little children, and about love. 
These two words make up a great part of John's epistles. 
He took on this tendency from his Lord. Jesus always 
took delight in the poor, because to satisfy their wants 
gratified the appetite of his nature. We lose nothing by 
his ascent to heaven. He is the same, and acts in the 
same manner still. His own, — little children, he counts 
and calls them, — ^his own he uses for his own pleasure, as 
objects to exercise his tenderness upon. 

You may have seen the countenance of a mother, who 
loves with a mother's love all her children always, sud- 
denly kindling into a more radiant sunshine when the 
infant came in sight. You may have observed that 
the elder children of tlie family in no wise resent, but 
rather imitate the mother's peculiar fondness for the little 
one. As the infant in a human household are ye, dis- 
ciples, among the possessions of Christ. All the angels 



132 ALL THINGS ARE YOUES, 

of God worship him; but these angels "excel in strength," 
and need not so tender — so mother-like a love. The 
spirits of the just made perfect own him their Saviour ; 
but they own him in triumphant songs for victory already 
won. Disciples in the body are the little children of his 
house, affording him more dehght, because draw in from 
his goodness larger gifts. Christ, in giving grace to his 
people, is getting delight for himself 

(2.) He win use his own as servants to do his work. 
He has a work to be done in the world, and needs 
workers. He desires your service, and deserves it. To 
work willingly is a mark of a true disciple. " Who art 
thou, Lord ? '' is the first question of a convicted, down- 
stricken man ; but when he has gotten an answer in 
peace to his first question, a second which is like unto it 
in truth and earnestness, rises as it were instinctively to 
his lips, ''Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?'" The 
servant, like the master, goeth about doing good. He 
makes haste to work, for the rest that remaineth may 
soon appear, and then the opportunity of working will 
be over. 

(3.) He will use his own as living epistles in which 
the world may read the riches of his grace. When in 
the concourse of nations proclamation is made, "Come, 
buy wine and milk," the strangers and foreigners, besides 
hearing what Christians say, desire to see what Chris- 
tianity is. The short way of satisfjdng this demand is to 
show them a Christian. In this merchandise, as in others, 
we must sell by samples. If we have no samples to show, 
we need not expect buyers to offer. In point of fact. 



WHEN YOU ARE Christ's. 133 

missionaries tell us that, instrumentally, it is to the life 
which they are enabled to lead in the heathen^s sight 
that the decisive success is ultimately due. Ignorant 
idolaters cannot read and learn Christ from smaller letters 
than those which a living epistle displays. The characters 
of Christ's kingdom must be deeply relieved in the life of 
its subjects, that the blind who will not see, may be 
compelled to feel the contact of saving truth. Who is 
sufficient for this thing? Our sufficiency is of God. "Ye 
shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come 
upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me,'' (Acts i.) 

(4.) He will use his own for company at his coming, 
and for portion evermore. These aspirations, you may 
think, are too high ; you cannot attain to them. You 
are afraid of extravagance, and think that a humbler 
flight will better befit your powers. Great saints may 
possibly reach these transcendental exercises, but you will 
be content with a meaner place. This is an evil spirit 
striving to wrap an angel's garment round its loathsome 
form. Men would be able to reach a higher standard of 
hope if they were willing to adopt a higher standard of 
holiness. Real trust in Christ has, for its other side, real 
separation from sin. These two rise and fall together by 
a law, like water in the two upright ends of a bent tube. 
"Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth him- 
self, even as he is pure." He who will not purify himself 
cannot affi^rd to let his hope in Christ rise high. Into 
the bosom of Jesus, spiritually now, or bodily in heaven, 
nothing shall enter that defile th. He who clings to 
mammon fights shy of God. 



134 ALL THINGS AEE YOURS, 

See the operation of this law in some notable examples 
of Scripture. Felix had a good deal of religion, but it 
was not of the bright, hopeful, confiding kind ; and there 
was a reason for the fact. His religion made him tremble 
at the prospect of judgment, yet it permitted him to pro- 
stitute justice for a bribe, and to persecute the innocent 
for popularity, (Acts xxiv.) The lowness on this side 
caused the lowness on that side, by the laws of nature. 
Had he been willing, on the one hand, to cast off* the 
dead weight of his lusts, his spirit, on the other hand, 
might have risen buoyant above the terrors of the Lord, 
and reached to rest in the light of his countenance. 
Again, the religion of the Philippian jailer was like that of 
Felix in its first stage, but thereafter it reached simul- 
taneously a higher point of hope and a higher point of 
holiness. He beheved to the saving of his soul, and 
forthwith washed the apostles' feet. Faith in the Lord 
Jesus, and love to all the saints, rose together, and at an 
equal rate, in that tamed, renewed heart. Once more, 
the same law may be seen in the experience of Paul him- 
self In him the bud of hope burst into the bloom of 
triumph before the time. He counted confidently on a 
crown of gloiy, and that to be set upon his head soon by 
the own hand of the righteous Judge. Such and so high 
was the great apostle's trust ; the other side of this man, 
accordingly, — the side of sufiering, and doing, and sepa- 
rating from sin, — rose in unison to an equal height. As 
his heart was more hopeful than others, his hand was more 
diligent in serving God and saving men. 

Here is one of the laws of the kingdom : He who 



WHEN YOU ARE CHRIST's. 135 

takes little from Christ, will do little for Christ. The 
higher that hope rises in your soul, if it come in the 
channel of the covenant, the faster will obedience flow in 
your life. " Ye are Christ's ! '^ Is it so ? Then, if but a 
little vein should give way within, or that busy heart 
should cease its beating, the next moment you would be 
with Christ upon his throne. Those who cherish such a 
hope cannot live for the world ; those who live for the 
world dare not cherish such a hope. 

III. "All tilings are yours." Here is a right royal 
promise. The shout of a king is in the camp of Chris- 
tians. All the fulness of the Godhead bodily has been 
treasured up in Christ, expressly that it may be within 
the reach of his people. Although the chief term is 
absolutely universal, we are not left to our own imagina- 
tion for the details of the inventory. A brief and 
comprehensive list is furnished to our hand : " Whether 
Paul, or ApoUos, or Cephas, or the world,^' &c. 

1. The ministry. While the grant, as suits the 
dignity of the Almighty Giver, is absolutely universal, it 
is evident that one particular article in the dowry of the 
bride bulked above others, at that time, in the nar- 
rator's mind, and burst out full-bodied in his letter — the 
ministry as the gift of the risen Head, and the heritage 
of his chosen people. Not the greatest of Christ's gifts, 
in their o^^nx intrinsic value, but appearing the largest at 
the moment, as occupying the foreground of the view, 
foremost in the list of possessions belonging to the King's 
children, come Paul, and Apollos, and Cephas, ministers 



136 ALL THINGS AEE YOUKS, 

through whom they had beheved. The variety of the 
provision, as well as its inherent worth, reveals the heart 
and hand of a Father. The full-bodied doctrinal teaching 
of Paul, the melting and arousing eloquence of the less 
profound Apollos, and the abrupt, fiery energy of Peter, — 
all are gladly recognised as a wisely mingled provision 
from the hand of that Father in heaven, who paints the 
rose and the violet of different hues but equal loveliness. 
Blessed are they that hunger. One of their blessings is, 
that the discriminating instincts of their new nature 
silently repudiate the ministry which, under any disguise, 
offers them a stone, and taste the sweetness of the living 
bread, whether ten talents be invested in breaking it, or 
only one. 

But, besides the bounty of the Giver, the liberty of the 
receivers also is sealed and signalized in this text. Paul, 
and Apollos, and Cephas are yours, — not ye theirs. Here 
is one of the marks which distinguish Christ from Anti- 
christ, and one of the reasons why the Romish priesthood 
conceal from the people the word of God. In Rome the 
ministers have the people ; here, the people have the 
ministers. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is 
liberty. The Bible is the charter of freedom alike to the 
nations and to the Church. While it demands absolute 
submission to Christ, it does not compel — it does not 
permit a Christian to receive his law from any other 
master. Let us use it, and not abuse it, lest in judgment 
it be taken away. The ministry is an article in the 
inventory of a Christian's goods. Ministers are vessels, 
chosen and prepared for containing the bread of life, and 



WHEN YOU ARE CHEIST's. 137 

distributing it among the children of the kingdom. 
They are the Lord's gifts to the heirs, not lords over the 
heritage. 

Here the list suddenly leaps into larger dimensions. 

2. " The world/"* The world on a Christian's side ! 
"We thought it was one of his chief foes. So it is. There 
is no contradiction here, and no confusion. The world, 
under direction of its god, wars against the soul. But 
our Father in heaven holds that enemy in the hollow of 
his hand, and compels it, in his own time and way, to 
serve his sons. The world is a birthplace for the new 
creature, and an exercise ground for invigorating the 
spiritual life. The very fires of temptation which the 
wicked one kindles to destroy the heirs, are employed by 
the love and power of the Spirit to heat the furnace in 
which their dross is purged away, that they may be meet 
for the inlieritance. Mark the world as the property of 
the King's sons. 

8. " Life." This life is precious in many ways to a 
Christian. When it is redeemed from vanity, he enjoys 
it much for itself, and more for its relation to another. 
If he had nothing more, it would be, indeed, a poor por- 
tion. It would be like the root of a tree under ground, 
where there is no tree. The fibres in the earth might 
have some sensations of life for a time, but they would 
soon rot away into kindred dust. Yet the root under 
ground is most precious where it is the root of a towering, 
fruitful tree. Such is life here in the body since sin 
has come into the world. It is low and mean if it has 
nothing above and beyond itself ; but to the new creature 



138 ALL THINGS ARE YOURS, 

in Clirist it is the root on which an eternal life grows. 
The life that began under the ground in darkness shall 
rear its head into the heavens, and bear its fruit in the 
presence of God. The natural life is indeed corrupt, but 
over its corrupt root the new nature is erigrafted, and so 
this lower earthly life becomes the root of a spiritual life 
in heaven. Life in the body possesses an unspeakable 
worth to the man who, being in Christ, lives anew, and 
lives for ever. Life in the root under ground is most 
precious, if out of it and over it, through the renewing of 
the Spirit, rise the life of grace, and the life in glory. 

4. " Death." It seems to be a difficult lesson even 
for true disciples to learn, that death is on their side. 
The understanding may, indeed, soon be convinced, but 
no decision of the judgment can quell the heart's antipathy 
to that dread messenger. It seems an instinct of humanity 
to shrink with loathing from the serpent s touch, even 
when we know that the serpent has been deprived of his 
sting. The steps of the process seem to be the same with 
Christians in their own case, as it was with the twelve in 
regard to the dying of their Lord. Jesus, as we learn 
from the evangelists, three different times told them 
plainly that he must soon suffer death. The first time 
they were very angry ; Peter rebuked him, and said, 
" Far be this from thee, Lord." The second time they were 
very sorrowful. The third time they seem to have 
received the intimation in silence. I suppose a Christian 
who has at last gotten the victory, could, in the hour of 
his departure, give a similar history of his own expe- 
rience. In childhood, when first the certainty of death 



WHEN YOU ARE CHRIST'S. 139 

began to break into his mind, he raged violently against 
it : afterwards he was solidly convinced of its truth and 
necessity, but the prospect made him very sorrowful ; 
but now, when it is near, he meets it calmly, if not joy- 
fully, as the dark, narrow door in the partition wall 
between time and eternity, through which the children 
are led from the place of exile into the mansions of the 
Father s house. 

5. " Things present or things to come." These are 
not now separate and additional constituents of the 
believer's portion, but a concluding repetition of the 
whole. All things are yours, Christians, in virtue of 
your union to Christ, whether they lie within the horizon 
of time, or beyond it in the unseen eternity. Some of 
the things present have already been enumerated as the 
sure heritage of the saints ; the things to come are 
thrown into the same scale. Here, however, our exposi- 
tion must be brought to a close. We have reached now 
those things that no ear hath heard, and no tongue can 
tell. Be still and know that he is God. Whatsoever 
the Father owns becomes the portion of the children. 

I once heard a father tell, that when he removed his 
family to a new residence where the accommodation was 
much more ample, and the substance much more rich 
and varied than that to which they had previously been 
accustomed, his youngest son, yet a lisping infant, ran 
round every room and scanned every article with ecstacy, 
calling out in childish wonder at every new sight, " Is 
this ours, father? and is this ours?" The child did not 
say "yours ;" and I observed that the father while he told 



140 ALL THINGS ARE YOURS, WHEN YOU ARE CHRIST'S. 

the story was not offended with the freedom. You could 
read in his glistening eye that the infant's confidence in 
appropriating as his own all that his father had, was an 
important element in his satisfaction. 

Such, I suppose, will be the surprise, and joy, and 
appropriating confidence with which the child of our 
Father's family will count all his own when he is re- 
moved from the comparatively mean condition of things 
present, and enters the infinite of things to come. When 
the glories of heaven burst upon his view, he does not 
stand at a distance like a stranger, saying, God, these 
are thine. He bounds forward to touch and taste every 
provision which those blessed mansions contain, exclaim- 
ing, as he looks in the Father's face, Father, this and this 
is ours. The dear child is glad of all the Father's riches, 
and the Father is gladder of his dear child. 



DIVINE WISDOM, ETC. 141 



IX. 



DIVINE WISDOM, AS SEEN IN THE NATUEE 
OF THE GOSPEL. 

" But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, tlien peaceable, gentle, and 
easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and 
without hypocrisy." — James iii. 17. 

When men were groping for wisdom on the earth, God 
sent wisdom from above. From everlasting this wisdom 
was with God, but his delights were with the sons of 
men. In the fulness of time he came, — God manifested 
in the flesh. He dwelt among ns, and we beheld his 
glory. He fills a believing heart with his presence, and 
will yet fill with his presence a renovated world, as sun- 
light fiUs the day. 

This text, so plain and pregnant in itself, may and 
should be viewed in two aspects, corresponding and yet 
distinct, like the type and the printed page, or the seal 
and the image which it leaves upon the wax. The 
wisdom that is from above is, in one aspect, the salva- 
tion of God, and, in another, the character of a Christian. 
For the one you look to the Scriptures ; for the other, to 
a believer's life. Alike the mould which God has sent 
from heaven, and the new life which it forms on earth, 
are pure and peaceable, gentle and easy to be entreated, 
fuU of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and 
without hypocrisy. All these features may be found 



142 DIVINE WISDOM, 

objectively in true religion, and subjectively in true 
Christians. On either side the twofold truth admits and 
demands a separate investigation. 

First, 

The wisdom that is from above is, Eevealed Truth, — 
the gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. 

Of this wisdom the text gives a remarkable series of 
distinct yet associated characteristics. In the construction 
of the original the attribute of purity is, by a special 
form of phraseology, separated from the rest as emphati- 
cally the first, and to it all the rest bear the relation of 
secondary and subordinate. In the actual examination 
of the passage, however, adopting an arrangement sug- 
gested partly by the meaning and partly by the form of 
the expressions, we shall class the whole series of eight 
separate attributes in four successive pairs. This method 
will contribute to the convenience, without impairing the 
accuracy of the illustration. 

I. First pure, then peaceable. 

II. Gentle, and easy to be entreated. 

III. FuD. of mercy and good fruits. 

lY. Without partiality, and without hypocrisy. 

When God reveals himself to the lost, these are the 
characteristic features of the manifestation. It is in 
all respects the opposite of another wisdom which is . 
*' earthly'' in its origin ; ''sensual, devilish" in its nature 
and effects. The double halo of glories which James 



AS SEEN IN THE NATURE OF THE GOSPEL. 143 

beheld encircling the salvation of God, will shine with a 
yet brighter radiance if we permit them to lean, while 
we look, against the dark ground of miscellaneous im- 
purities with which all earth-born superstitions teem. 

I. Kevealed truth — the wisdom that is from above — 
is " first pure, then peaceable/' These two constitute 
a pair ; they are connected by a link of peculiar signifi- 
cance and power. When the cry is raised on earth that 
its Maker is approaching, — when the criminals know by 
the rustling of his robe at the door of their prison that 
the Judge is near, the question, Is it peace ? agitates their 
breasts and trembles on their tongues. The guilty desire 
peace, but dare not expect it. In prospect of the meeting, 
conscience, darkened but not dead, is shut up between 
the dread alternatives : If it be pure it cannot be peaceable, 
and if it be peaceable it cannot be pure. If, in dealing 
with the sinful, the Holy One should recede from his 
demand of purity, he might proclaim peace ; but if he 
proclaim peace, he must be content to dwell with sin. 
Such are the forces that tear a human heart, ignorant as 
yet of the gospel, when the footsteps of the Judge are 
heard approaching. Nature and reason can neither find 
nor make a door of hope. The man is not able to believe 
that God will be pleased with sin, and therefore dare not 
hope that he will be at peace with sinners. The moral 
efiect of this pressure, as long as it remains alone, is alto- 
gether evil. In the absence of hope, anticipation of punish- 
ment does not produce reformation. The force of this fear 
goes, not to cast sin out of his life in order that the man 



144 DIVINE WISDOM, 

may be fit company for God, but to cast God out of his 
memory, in order that the man may live at peace in 
his sin. 

The wisdom that comes from above resolves this diffi- 
culty. It shows- how God may dwell with man, and yet 
not sacrifice his purity; how man may dwell with God, 
and yet not lose his peace. It is first pure, and then 
peaceable. It neither tarnishes divine holiness, nor 
crushes human hope. It guards first the righteousness of 
the Judge ; thereafter and therewith it obtains the pardon 
of the criminal. Here is light on the darkness; but 
it is light from heaven. The world by its own wisdom 
never knew God thus. 

It is in Christ crucified that the two apparent contra- 
dictions meet. The promises which by themselves would 
be inconsistent and mutually destructive, " in him are yea, 
and in him Amen." The substitution of Clirist for his 
people is the fulcrum which sustains alike the honour of 
God and the safety of believing men. The sacrifice of the 
just for the unjust breached the girdling prison wall of 
despair which encompassed the human race. Through the 
opening streamed a light from heaven. It is no longer 
the dark dilemma : If God be just, heU must be our 
portion: if we obtain his favour, his righteousness is 
dishonoured and his heaven defiled. In presence of the 
Lord our righteousness these difficulties vanish like mist 
before the rising sun. God preserves his own purity, 
and yet lifts the lost into his bosom : the guilty get 
a free pardon, and yet the motives which bind them 
to obedience, instead of being relaxed, are indefinitely 



AS SEEN IN THE NATUEE OF THE GOSPEL. 14^5 

strengthened. Revelation is first pure and then peaceable : 
the Revealer is a just God and a Saviour. 

II. Revealed truth — the wisdom that is from above — 
is ^'gentle and easy to be entreated." This is not the view 
which springs in nature, and prevails in the world. Fear 
in the conscience of the guilty, after passing through 
various degrees of intensity and forms of manifestation, 
ever tends to culminate in the question, " Shall I give the 
fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" See the result 
as it is exhibited in India. The various tribes that in- 
habit the peninsula do not think that their own gods are 
" gentle, and easy to be entreated." The images with which 
we are all acquainted demonstrate the contrary. These 
representations of the worshipped are made by the wor- 
shippers, not in mockery of an abject superstition, but 
as an act of devotion to superior beings. These images, 
faithful translations of human thought into brass and 
silver, are hideous monsters. They seem to delight in the 
sufferings of their votaries. They are represented as the 
shedders of blood; and blood is continually offered on 
every great emergency to propitiate their favour. The 
chief gratification of a chief idol is the self-murder of his 
worshippers under the wheel of the truck that bears his 
weight. 

See there what an unclean conscience in the dark 
counts the character of God. It is a case in which the 
primal germ of justice as an attribute of the Supreme 
has been overlaid and defaced by the incrustation of ages, 
and not subsequently restored by light from heaven. 



146 DIVINE WISDOM, 

Similar results appear in regions where revelation, once 
triumphant, has been quenched again b}^ superstition. 
The Papists have veiled the compassionate countenance 
of Jesus, and taught their dupes that they must apply to 
more gentle mediators. They do not venture to go 
directly into the presence of Him who took the little 
children in his arms. They create for themselves inter- 
cessors who will be more easily entreated. Having lost 
the spiritual conception of the divine compassion, they 
betake themselves, instead, to the gross experiences of a 
carnal mind. They substitute a woman's softness for the 
gentleness of Christ. There is nothing in the idolatry of 
the pagan world more dishonouring to the one Mediator be- 
tween God and man, than the worship of Mary, toward 
which the Eomish hierarchy has for ages been drifting, 
and in which it has now irrevocably and finally sunk. 
They crucify Christ afresh who send trembling sinners 
to lay their aching heads on a kinder breast than his. 

When a guilty creature comes in simplicity to God 
through Christ, it is easier to pour out the heart in the 
eternal Father's ear, than to confess to any fellow-sinner. 
If you get access to the throne of grace through the blood 
of the Lamb, you will be able to speak wants and weak- 
nesses there, which you dare not confide to a mother. 

The wisdom that is from above is gentle; "a bruised 
reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he 
not quench/' The wisdom that is from above is easy to 
be entreated; nay, more, he tenderly entreats you, — 
*'Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, 
and I will give you rest." Surely the wisdom that bids 



AS SEEN IN THE NATURE OF THE GOSPEL. 147 

an anxious inquirer turn from the Son of God our Saviour, 
and pour liis confession into a more tender heart is "earthly, 
sensual, devilish." 

III. Revealed truth — the wisdom that is from above — 
is *' full of mercy and good fruits."" So far from being in 
all cases united, these two, in their full dimensions, meet 
only in the gospel. The administration of a government 
might be full of mercy, and yet destitute of good fruits : 
nay, more, the want of good fruit might be directly due to 
the fulness of mercy. Mercy to the full, — an absolutely 
unconditional pardon to the guilty, is in human govern- 
ments inconsistent with the public good. A ruler who 
empties the jails indiscriminately amid the huzzas of 
a rabble, cruelly injures the peaceable inhabitants. Bitter 
are the fruits of his wholesale forgiveness. The best 
wisdom of men cannot bring these two together ; they 
devour each other as often as the attempt is made. 
What wisdom from beneath could not do, the wisdom that is 
from above has done. In the words of Paul : By faith we 
do not make void, we establish the law. In the gospel of 
the grace of God, absolute fulness of mercy to the guilty 
binds the forgiven more firmly to obedience. 

The wisdom which is exhibited in the covenant is full 
of mercy. In general, we are all aware that the Christian 
dispensation is merciful ; but more is written here 
regarding it. Expressly and specifically it is full of 
mercy ; more there could not be. Perhaps you may re- 
member some period in your experience when you were 
conscious of a wish that more mercy had been in the 



148 DIVINE WISDOM, 

gospel than there is, in order that it might cover your 
case/ When a backslider has been a second time 
brought to a stand, and convictions again begin to pierce 
him; — when, looking back, and in, and up, he feels that 
there is not even in the gospel a provision that will 
allay his fear, he secretly wishes that God were more 
merciful than the Bible represents him to be. This man 
deceives himself. He is misled by a name. It is not 
more of mercy, but less of holiness that he desires to 
find in the gospel. God could not put more mercy in 
his covenant, for all his mercy is in it abeady. Woe to 
us if that which it contains comes short of our need. It 
is not a wider door of mercy that we want, but a larger 
liberty to sin. 

This divine wisdom is also full of good fruits. The 
tree is good, its fruits are good, and it bears them abun- 
dantly. Time would fail to name or number them. 
Compare the condition, moral and economical, of a 
heathen country with the condition of our own, and the 
difference will represent, approximately, the more palpable 
of the good fruits which the gospel produces. Even the 
charities and the refinements of civilized society almost 
all spring directly from Christianity. The good fruits 
which the gospel bears for time are great; but greater 
and better fruits are ripening for use in eternity. 

Either attribute is in itself precious ; and there is an 
additional and peculiar interest in the union of the two. 
If there had not been divine wisdom in the plan, the pro- 
fusion of mercy would have blasted in the germ all the 
promises of fruit. The mercy that is free to us was 



AS SEEN IN THE NATUEE OF THE GOSPEL. 149 

dearly bought by our divine substitute. Justice was 
satisfied while the guilty were set free. There lies the 
peculiar feature of the mercy which God gives and sinners 
get through Christ. It does not encourage the forgiven 
to continue in sin. Nor is its virtue only negative, doing 
no harm ; it is intensely positive, doing more for actual 
holiness in the world than any administration of law, or 
infliction of vengeance could have done. Of two debtors, 
both forgiven by the same benevolent superior, which will 
love him most ? I suppose he to whom he forgave most? 
A right answer. Such forgiveness as God bestows in 
Christ makes the forgiven love the forgiver much ; and 
love is the greatest, the only fulfiUer of the law. 

IV. Revealed truth — the wisdom that is from above — 
is "without partiality, and without hypocrisy." 

In declaring that the wisdom from above cannot be 
charged with either of these vices, the text evidently 
proceeds upon an implied contrast with a wisdom from 
beneath which is deeply tinged with both. We are, in- 
deed, so much accustomed to partiality and hypocrisy in 
human affairs, that it becomes difficult to lodge in our 
minds the conception of an offer entirely equal, and an 
announcement absolutely true. If during a long period 
of years you have been cheated more or less in every 
bargain ; if all the goods that you purchase turn out on 
examination to be more or less adulterated ; if you find 
by experience that you never can depend for safety on 
honesty in another, but always and only on vigilance in 
yourself, a habit of suspiciousness is engendered which 



150 DIVINE WISDOM, 

becomes at length a second nature. You smile sadly at 
professions of honesty, and quietly calculate the loss of 
the expected deceit. Accustomed in the moral depart- 
ment of human things to a continual state of siege, we 
have contracted a corresponding habit of suspicion. We 
lack the tendency, and perhaps the power, to exercise a 
pure implicit trust. We do not receive the kingdom of 
God as a little child, openly, instantly, confidingly ; we 
look askance at the offer, as if it were too good to be 
true, with the suspicion engendered by long experience of 
a deceitful heart and a deceitful world. 

In this state our minds are when proposals are made 
to us in God's name on the business of our salvation. The 
offer comes to a heart on which there is, partly inherent 
and partly acquired, a bent of universal distrustfulness. 
How shall we be brought, in very deed and in simplicity, 
to trust that God is true, although every man should be 
a liar ? It is not enough to be told that such he is. 
Though one rose from the dead to tell it, we would not, 
with these deceitful, deceived hearts, believe. A nature 
cannot be so changed. Except a man be born again he 
cannot see and receive the kingdom of God in the true 
little-child fashion. A " living hope'' would be a pre- 
cious possession for these cold, suspicious hearts ; but unto 
that blessed hope one must be " begotten again." " Create 
in me a clean heart, God, and renew a right spirit 
within me." Take away this suspicious heart, and give a 
tender, trustful one. " Lord, I believe, help thou mine 
unbelief." 

Setting beauteous, divine truth in front of the opposite 



AS SEEN IN THE NATURE OF THE GOSPEL. 151 

and corresponding falsehood, in order that its white gar- 
ment may more brightly shine, the apostle declares, 
finally, that the Mediator's proposal for peace with God is 
without partiality- — offered alike to all, and without hypo- 
crisy — truly offered to each. 

1. Without partiality : — offered alike to all. All the 
fallen are in need, and all alike. It holds good, 
morally as well as materially, that there are no high 
places on the surface of the earth, when it is seen from 
heaven. It is level as well as low. His own goodness 
wiU not admit the best into favour; his own badness will 
not keep out the worst. Grace, absolutely sovereign and 
free, is the main principle of the gospel. When it comes 
to the world it finds there no good, but gives all. It is 
very difiicult, but altogether necessary, clearly to under- 
stand and frankly to accept this feature of the divine 
plan. It recognises absolutely no difference between one 
man and another. In our view, indeed, and in our rela- 
tions one toward another, there are degfrees of good and 
evil, as there are inequalities on the surface of the earth ; 
but these differences entirely disappear when the eye of 
the Omniscient searches the hearts and ways of men. 
Rightly we count and call the sea " level," although its 
parts are constantly and convulsively leaping upward ; so 
lies this surging sea of wickedness under the eye of God. 

The provisions of the gospel correspond to the condi- 
tion of mankind. The covenant has been framed accord- 
ing to its author's view of the world's need. Mercy is 
not moulded in this shape for the moral and in that 
shape for the vicious, but alike for all. No human being 



152 DIVINE WISDOM, 

is either kept out or taken in, on account of anything 
peculiar in his heart or his history. Beware of thinking 
on the one hand that you have a better prospect of being 
accepted because of something good, or a worse because 
of something evil in yourself. Christ came to call sin- 
ners to repentance ; in that character simply you must 
come. The blood of Jesus cleanseth from aU sin ; how- 
ever deeply you are stained, you may come. Whatever 
the water-flood in Noah's time may have been, the baptism 
of wrath that comes on the world for sin covers the high- 
est mountains of its merit. The ark of safety, needed by 
all alike, is offered alike to all. Those who stand on the 
highest place will be lost if they remain without; those who 
stand on the lowest place will be saved if they come in. 

2. Without hypocrisy : — truly offered to each. What 
have we here ? Can the Supreme, consistently with his 
own honour, plead before his creatures, that he is not a 
hypocrite, making his offer appear more generous than it 
really is ? Yes ; such is his long-suffering condescension. 
All the repetitions of his offer are of this kind — the 
overflowings of a compassion that is more than full. A 
God less gracious might have opened a way of escape, and 
proclaimed it once, and shut it then for ever against all 
who did not instantly flee. So did not our God. He 
does not take our first denial, nor our second. He 
stands at the door and knocks; he pleads with sinners, 
Why will ye die ? 

Here is a word of wonderful condescension ; the offer 
of mercy through Christ to sinful men is not an act of 
hypocrisy. Strange measure of forbearance this ! But 



AS SEEN IN THE NATURE OF THE GOSPEL. 153 

is it needed ? Do men deny or doubt the sincerity of the 
offer which the Messenger of the covenant has brought to 
the world ? They do. Nor is it here and there a rare 
example of peculiar wickedness ; it is the commonest sin 
I know. We do not speak this distrust ; but we live it. 
In answer to this dark suspicion of his sincerity which 
the Omniscient reads in our hearts, the Spirit witnesses 
through James that the proposals of pardon wliich the 
gospel brings are " without hypocrisy."' 

I have seen a dog tried in this fashion : his owner 
took a full dish of finest human food from the table, as 
it had been prepared for the family, and set it before him, 
encouraging him by word and gesture to eat. The sagaci- 
ous brute shrank back, lay down, refused, and gave many 
unmistakeable indications that he would be too glad to 
eat, but he saw clearly it was all a pretence — it was too 
good for him, and never intended for him — and if he 
should attempt to taste it, the dish would be snatched 
away, while he would perhaps receive a blow for daring 
to take the offer in earnest. 

The picture, although its associations are less grave, 
possesses, in relation to our subject, the one essential 
quality of trueness. It represents, more exactly than 
anything I know in nature, the treatment which God's 
offer gets from men. We treat the offer as if the offerer 
were not sincere. The greatness and goodness of the gift 
are precisely the features which our guilty minds pervert 
into grounds of suspicion that it is not really meant for 
us. If it were some crumb, or husk, we might think it 
suitable, and accept it greedily. If we were permitted 



15^ DIVINE WISDOM, 

to creep in stealthily, to get a bit of bread and shelter 
among the hired servants, we could believe that the offer 
was intended to be accepted, and accept it accordingly ; 
but the Father's bosom, his kiss, his tears, his home, his 
ring, his feast, his heritage — all this to us, now, and free 
• — this prodigal heart, soaked long in sin, dark, hard, nar- 
row, unhopeful, distrustful, counts it too good to be true. 
Alas for the pitiful condition of sinful men ! — refusing 
the great salvation, because it is so great that they can- 
not believe it is really intended to be given free to the 
unworthy. We have been so accustomed to untrue pre- 
tence, both in ourselves and others, that distrust has be- 
come our nature. It seems as impossible for our spirit 
as for our flesh to come again as that of a little child. 

All things are possible with God. Look unfco Jesus. 
He is the resuiTection and the life. Lord, increase our 
faith. Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy 
power. Ask, and ye shall receive. Ask, and ye shall 
receive both the gift of pardon, and the true, willing, 
trustful heart, that wiU take it as a little child from a 
Father's hand. 



AS SEEN IN THE EFFECTS OF THE GOSrEL. 155 



DIYINE WISDOM, AS SEEN IN THE EFFECTS 
OF THE GOSPEL. 

" But the "wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and 
easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits^ without partiality, and 
without hypocrisy.— James iii. 17. 

Second. 

We now consider " the wisdom that is from above " in its 
secondary and subjective aspect ; as a lesson printed on 
the life of believing men by the type of revealed truth ; 
— as the image left on human hearts by the seal which 
came from heaven and pressed them. In the preceding 
discourse we looked on wisdom as it came down from 
heaven ; in this discourse we look upon the impression 
which it has left on earth. There, wisdom represented 
the person and work of Christ ; here it represents the 
character and conduct of his true disciples. 

They speak, all too lightly sometimes, of " the divine 
in man ; " alas, his glory has departed ! The marks of 
his original excellence, as chief of creation and child of 
God, are almost entirely blotted out. Poor, and wretched, 
and miserable, and blind, and naked is man, until help 
from on high reach him. The divine in man ! — yea, but 
it did not spring indigenous there ; it came down from 
the Father of lights. If any of the fallen are now wise, 
the wisdom has come from above ; but when it comes it 



156 DIVINE WISDOM, 

does not sink out of sight like water spilt on the ground. 
Saving truth received into a believing heart, and practised 
in the Christian life, asserts its origin and displays its 
character. For the original imprinting type you must 
look to the gospel of our Lord and Saviour ; but the 
legible epistle you may read in the life of any true dis- 
ciple. It is more easy to read the printed page than 
the printing type ; hence, when the Master wants wit- 
nesses, he calls and qualifies living men. Pointing to the 
Galilean fishermen who followed him, he said in his great 
intercessory prayer (John xvii.), " Father, I am glorified 
in them." The wisdom of which James writes comes 
from above, but it finds a dwelling-place here below. It 
lives in the heart, and labours in the life of believers. 
You may read the essence of the gospel from the page of 
the humblest Christian's history. 

The wisdom that is from above is, in this aspect, the 
character of a converted man. " The epistle of Christ," 
like the type which printed it, is, — 

I. First pure, then peaceable. 
II. Gentle, and easy to be entreated. 

III. Full of mercy and good fruits. 

IV. "Without partiality, and without hypocrisy. 

I. The new creature — the work of the Spirit in be- 
lievers — is " first pure, then peaceable." 

1. In relation to God. In his approach to you there 
was first purity and then peace ; therefore, as an echo 
answers to the sound that waked it, the same two in the 



AS SEEN IN THE EFFECTS OF THE GOSPEL. 157 

same order will characterize your approach to him. If 
he come to you in peace only, trampling on purity, you 
will not regard purity in your relations with him. It is 
thus that the denial or neglect of the atonement under- 
mines the foundations of holiness. But when peace 
reaches us through a purity which the Son of God secured 
by shedding his own blood, we cannot accept this salva- 
tion and yet make light of sin. As the softened wax 
cannot show any other figure than the corresponding con- 
verse of the seal that has been pressed upon it ; so the 
broken, humbled, believing heart, when it has yielded 
to the v/isdom from above, which is first pure, then peace- 
able, cannot present upward to God any other character 
than a copy of his own. Owing to remaining hardness 
and obliquity in the recipient heart, the image is in no 
case perfectly transferred ; but in all cases of true conver- 
sion the man is more or less fully made partaker of the 
divine nature. As God would not come in peace to the 
sinful, except on the foundations of holiness, honoured 
first, true Christians, much as they desire peace, do not 
expect — will not ask it on other terms. The same mind 
that was in Christ is also found in Christians. 

The cross of Christ is the grand safeguard of purity in 
all who truly believe. If God had displayed justice 
without merc}^, we would have lost hope ; if he had dis- 
played mercy without justice, we would have been en- 
couraged to continue in sin. In the one case the mani- 
festation would have produced despair ; and in the other, 
immorality. But divine wisdom, as well as justice and 
mercy, was in the plan. Peace through purity was pro- 



158 DIVINE WISDOM, 

claimed from heaven ; happiness and holiness echoed the 
answer up from earth. 

In this way we reach a rule by which we may test the 
soundness of our hope. He who is at peace in impurity 
has not received upon his heart the imperial seal of the 
King Eternal, but the counterfeit of some false pretender. 
Your spirit will be cast in the mould of the mercy for 
which it hopes. God will see in you a copy, more or 
less perfectly rendered, of what you see in him. 

2. In relation to ourselves. Peace of conscience is 
sweet, whether it be false or true. In human beings it 
is like one of the appetites of nature. The desire to 
avoid or escape remorse is an instinct of humanity, act- 
ing as strongly and steadily as the desire to avoid or 
escape bodily pain. We have, in common with the lower 
animals, bodily members provided with nerves of sensa- 
tion. In common with them, we endeavour to avoid 
pain in any member, and to escape from it if it has 
already begun. Conscience, though a faculty of the soul, 
is in this respect like another member in man, of which 
the brutes are destitute. This, as well as other mem- 
bers, is liable to be injured ; and when it is injured, we 
suffer as acutely as if the injury had been inflicted on 
hand or foot. While the desire to escape from the pain 
of an accusing conscience is so strong in our nature, there 
is reason to fear that the error of peace at any price will 
be common amongst us. Although, in the constitution 
of human nature, admitted sin wounds the conscience and 
tends to give pain, peace in union with impurity seems, 
notwithstanding, to be a common attainment. Our own 



AS SEEN IN THE EFFECTS OF THE GOSPEL. 159 

hearts are the chief of the false teachers who say, " Peace, 
peace, when there is no peace." When the hope of mercy 
rests on any scheme of false doctrine, or any insinuation 
of self-righteousness, the man will stride forward to peace 
of conscience although he should trample purity under 
foot : but when we take divine wisdom, as it comes to 
us from above, we cannot walk towards peace over the 
body of holiness. 

What a depth of wisdom lies in this feature of the 
gospel ! The inscription which its type, wherever it is 
admitted, leaves in the deep of a human soul, is. Im- 
purity disturbs peace. When I accept mercy through 
the blood of Christ, my desire for peace of conscience, 
one of the strongest forces in my being, becomes a weight 
hung over a pulley exerting a constant pressure to lift 
me up into actual righteousness. 

8. In relation to the world around. Those who have, 
through faith, gone down with Christ in his baptism of 
blood to wash their sins away, acquire a depth and soli- 
dity of character which enables them to bear unmoved 
the tossings of a troubled time. An established, expe- 
rienced, hopeful Christian, is, in the world, like an ice- 
berg in a swelling sea. The waves rise and fall. Ships 
strain and shiver, and nod on the agitated waters. But 
the iceberg may be seen from far receiving the breakers 
on its snow-white sides, casting them off unmoved, and 
where all else is rocking to and fro, standing stable like 
the everlasting hills. The cause of its steadiness is its 
depth. Its bulk is bedded in calm water beneath the 
tumult that rages on the surface. Although, like the 



160 DIVINE WISDOM, 

ships, it is floating in the water, it receives and throws 
off the angry waves, like the rocks that gird the shore. 

Behold the condition and attitude of Christians. They 
float in the same sea of life with other men, and bear 
the same buflfetings ; but they are not driven hither and 
thither, the sport of wind and water. The wave strikes 
them, breaks over them, and hisses past in foam ; but 
they remain unmoved. They were not caught by sur- 
prise, while they had a slight hold of the surface. The 
chief part of their being lies deep beyond the reach of 
these superficial commotions. Their life, " hid with 
Christ in God," bears, without breaking, all the strain of 
the storm. Those who, through the blood of the Lamb 
and the ministry of the Spirit, become " first pure,"" may 
well afibrd to be " then peaceable," although they are 
swimming in the shifting sea of time, and not standing 
yet on the stable shore of eternity. " He that believeth 
shall not make haste." In times of trial the deepest is 
steadiest. 

In as far as the world consists of individual men, ani- 
mated by an evil spirit, with whom Christians must hold 
intercourse in life, the rule is not peace, absolutely and 
in all circumstances ; but first purity at all hazards, and 
then, *' if it be possible, as much as in you lieth," also 
peace. It is not enough to read this law in the Bible. 
It is not spoken into Christians ; Christians are moulded 
into it. Off* their Redeemer, in the act of cleaving to 
him for newness of life, the redeemed take this feature 
of their character. That characteristic lies in the wisdom 
from above, and therefore it is found deposited beneath. 



AS SEEN IN THE EFFECTS OF THE GOSPEL. 161 

in all who have been renewed in the spirit of their 
minds. Looking unto Jesns, a disciple perceives that 
though " God is love," he would not make peace with 
sinners at the expense of pureness ; being an " imitator 
of God/' as a dear child should be, he strives to do like- 
wise in his intercourse with men. 

II. The new creature — the work of the Spirit in be- 
lievers — is " gentle, and easy to be entreated.'' 

These two features, also, of the heavenly type, may 
be read on the terrestrial page. This glory of the Lord 
shines dimly, indeed, but truly, in the life of those who 
have been created again in his image. Receiving out of 
his fulness grace for grace, Christians obtain, among other 
things, some of " the gentleness of Christ." Those who 
possess any of it long for more. They speak of virtue 
being its own reward ; and this is eminently true of 
gentleness. Every one knows how pleasant it is to re- 
ceive gentle treatment from another ; but as of other 
good things generally, so especially of this, ''it is more 
blessed to give than to receive" it. 

Do not, however, expect that when you have believed, 
the features of Christ's likeness will come down upon 
you one by one, without any thought or effort on your 
part. This assimilation to the character of Christ which 
goes on " within you," gradual as the growth of a 
mustard-seed, and pervasive as the spread of leaven, is 
none other than the kingdom of God — that kingdom 
which suffereth violence, and which the violent take by 
force. Strive to enter in. Do not count that you have 



162 DIVINE WISDOM, 

already attained, or are already perfect ; but, forgetting 
tlie things which are behind, press on to reach this high 
calling which still attaches to divine wisdom when it has 
been transferred to the life of believing men, — gentle, and 
easy to be entreated. 

Although the lot of men is, on the whole, much more 
equal than it seems, yet at certain particular points some 
have more to bear and do than others. Hard knots 
occur in some persons as in some trees, while others are 
constitutionally smoother in the grain. But while I 
willingly confess that more gnarled natures must endure 
more pain in the process of being made meek and gentle, 
I hesitate to own that, in the end, these Christians remain 
ordinarily more harsh and ungainly than others. On them, 
indeed, were high, hard places which caught on every- 
thing that came near, giving much trouble both to them- 
selves and their neighboiu^s ; but when the whole man is 
brought into subjection to the law of Chi'ist, and placed, 
accordingly, under the inexorable processes of the Spirit's 
ministry, these highest, hardest places, are first rubbed 
down, and become at last, perhaps, the lowest and the 
smoothest. I think, although it is not a uniform law, 
it is, notwithstanding, a common experience, to find in 
the new man a very low place wliere in the old man 
there was a mountain-height. " Wliy should it be thought 
impossible with you that God should raise the dead ? " 
And why should it be thought impossible, when he under- 
takes to create a new v/orld or a new man, that every 
valley should be exalted, and every mountain and hill 
should be brought lo^Y ? Where the old was harsh and 



AS SEEN IN THE EFFECTS OF THE GOSPEL. 163 

overbearing, the new may be gentle and easy to be en- 
treated ; where the old was timidly yielding, the new may 
be faithful and bold. 

Beware of excusing, either to yourself or others, ad- 
mitted defects of Christian meekness, by allegations of 
constitutional peculiarities. Rather, if the high things 
of nature still remain high, fear lest you be either not 
under grace, or not growing in it ; for " if any man be 
in Christ, he is a new creature." 

III. The new creature — the work of the Spirit in 
believers — is "full of mercy and good fruits.'' 

It is a principle of the gospel that he who gets mercy 
shows mercy. The parable of the servant who was for- 
given much by his Lord, and then refused to forgive a 
little to his fellow, is intended to set oif that beautiful truth 
by the dark contrast of the corresponding falsehood. The 
man who receives the gospel, and because he has received 
it, is, like the gospel, full of mercy. The little cistern is 
brought into connection with the living spring, and the 
grace which is infinite in the Master, is transferred to the 
disciple in the measure of his powers. When a man is 
full of mercy in this sinning, suffering world, a stream 
of benevolence will be found flowing in his' track, all 
through the wilderness. If the reservoir within his 
heart be kept constantly charged by union with the 
upper spring, there need be neither ebbing nor intermis- 
sion of the current all his days, for opening opportuni- 
ties everywhere abound. 

Small though the vessel be, it will distribute much in 



164 DIVINE WISDOM, 

the course of a generation, if it is ever full and ever 
flowing. See that well on the mountain-side — a small, 
rude, rocky cup full of crystal water, and that tiny rill 
flowing through a breach in its brim. The vessel is so 
diminutive that it could not contain a supply of water 
for a single family a single day. But, ever getting 
through secret channels, and ever giving by an open 
overflow, day and night, summer and winter, from year 
to year, it discharges, in the aggregate, a volume to 
which its own capacity bears no appreciable proportion. 
The flow from that diminutive cup might, in drought or 
war, become life to all the inhabitants of a great city. 
It is thus that a Christian, if he is full of mercy and good 
fruits, is a greater blessing to the world than either him- 
self or his neighbours deem. Let no disciple of Christ 
either think himself excused, or permit himself to be dis- 
couraged from doing good, because his talents and oppor- 
tunities are few. Your capacity is small, it is true ; but 
if you are in Christ, it is the capacity of a well. Al- 
though it does not contain much at any moment, so as 
to attract attention to you for your gifts, ifc will give 
forth a great deal in a lifetime, and many will be re- 
freshed. 

IV. The new creature — the work of the Spirit in be- 
lievers — is " without partiality, and without hypocrisy." 

These features also remain in divine wisdom when it 
is transferred to the heart and life of Christians. These 
plants, though not now indigenous in human nature, 
may, when transpla^nted, and watched, and watered, grow 



AS SEEN IN THE EFFECTS OF THE GOSPEL. 165 

there, and bear substantial fruit. If we would possess 
and exercise Impartiality and Sincerity in our intercourse 
with men, we must borrow them from the pattern of 
God's intercourse with us in the gospel of his Son. As 
he deals with us, we must learn to deal with each other. 
We have nothing which we did not receive. 

1. Without partiality. It is not the impartiality of 
indifference, but the impartiality of love. Some people 
practically discover that to be impartial is an easy attain- 
ment. They contrive to care equally for all, by caring 
nothing for any. This is the equality of the grave. It 
is not the kind of regard which God has shown to us, 
and therefore should not be the kind which we show to a 
brother. Our text describes the impartiality not of with- 
holding, but of giving, — the impartiality of a heart that 
is full of mercy, and ever seeking a channel of overflow. 
The empty may easily be equal ; but with these we are 
not now concerned. Those who have through grace been 
filled, must seek more grace, in order that they may dis- 
tribute impartially. As there is no respect of persons 
with God, there should be none with the godly. 

No partiality for persons. There is room for great 
advancement here. We have been too much in the habit 
of valuing a human being according to the texture of the 
dress that covers him, or the amount of his balance at 
the bank. Look to the wisdom that is from above, and 
learn from it to love the poor as well as the rich ; the 
rude as well as the polished ; the ungainly as well as the 
winsome. How low we are ! How unlike Christ are 
even the best Christians ! 



166 DIVINE WISDOM, 

There is no law which requires or permits us to love 
filth as well as cleanliness, or falsehood as well as truth; 
but the man, — the immortal creature who has fallen by 
sin, and may be restored through the Eedeemer, — the man 
we must learn to love and long for, in whatever condi- 
tion he may be found, and whatever character he may 
manifest. The redemption of the soul is precious, and the 
opportunity of applying it in any given case will soon cease 
for ever. Look at the world as Jesus did, and let your 
compassions flow like his. 

No partiality for peoples. Care equally for drunken 
Sabbath-breakers on the Clyde, and ignorant idol-wor- 
shippers on the Ganges. What a length and breadth of 
exercise ground is open to Christians ! Impartiality, 
however, does not mean communism. It touches not the 
ties of family or neighbourhood. As radii in a circle are 
closest near the centre, and towards the circumference lie 
more widely apart, the affections of a human heart do 
and should fall thickest on those who are nearest. Ex- 
pressly on this principle the Christian mission was insti- 
tuted at first. Love, in the heart of the first disciples, 
was recognised by Him who kindled it, to be of the nature 
of fire or light. He did not expect it to fall on distant 
places without first passing through the intermediate 
space. From Jerusalem, at his command, and under the 
Spirit's ministry, it radiated through Judsea, and from 
Judaea to Samaria, and thence to the ends of the earth, 
(Acts i.) 

A certain proverb is much used, and much abused in 
our day, by persons who discourage Christian missions to 



AS SEEN IN THE EFFECTS OF THE GOSPEL. 167 

the heathen : Charity begins at home. Expressing only 
half a truth, it is so employed as to be equivalent to a 
whole falsehood. It would be more trae and more salu- 
tary if it were written in full : Charity begins at home, 
but does not end there. 

No partiality for sins. It is hard to learn what our 
errors are in this respect, and harder to correct them. 
Habits that rank as national, whether in conduct or cos- 
tume, may deviate far from propriety, and yet not attract 
attention, much less elicit reproof One huge partiality, 
for example, most offensive to God, and most hurtful to 
men, covers great dishonesties, and punishes small ones. 
A young man who had used for his own purposes a 
hundred pounds of his employers' money, as it was pass- 
ing through his hands, told me in the narrow prison-cell 
where he was dreeing his punishment, that at the same 
time in the same city men were going at large and living 
in splendour, who had notoriously committed the same 
crime, but prudently committed it on a larger scale than he. 
I was compelled to own the fact, although, of course, I re- 
fused to accept it as an apology. Of the parties to the 
vices that grow in pairs, why is one accepted in the draw- 
ing-room, and the other banished to the darksome wynd ? 
The wisdom which plans and practically sanctions this dis- 
tinction has not descended from above. The Church, 
too, must learn to copy more closely the impartiality of 
her head. She must not throw a mantle over one sin, 
while she brandishes the rod of discipline over another. 
The sin that excludes from the kingdom of heaven should 
exclude from the communion of saints. Oh, when shall 



168 DIVINE WISDOM, ^ 

Christians learn from Christ to be " without partiality?" 
It is not easy for the Church in the world to sail against 
the world's stream, but it is her business to strive in that 
direction, and her privilege to ask and receive the 
Spirit, as a breath from heaven, to enable her to over- 
come. 

2. Without hypocrisy. It seems one of the plainest 
precepts of morality that we should not be one thing, 
and pretend to be another. God is true in showing 
mercy ; if we receive it in simplicity, we shall be true 
like him. When a sinner, softened in repentance, lays 
himself for pardon along a crucified Christ, he takes on 
from the Lord a transparent trueness which tells distinctly 
whose he is, to every passenger he meets on the highway 
of life. 

In our approach to Ood we should be without hypo- 
crisy. Strange, that such an exhortation should ever be 
needed ! Lying unto men you can understand, while you 
condemn ; but lying unto God seems as inexplicable in 
fact as it is unjustifiable in morality. To assume an ap- 
pearance which, is contrary to truth, in acts of direct in- 
tercourse with the All-seeing, seems so stupid, that, at first 
sight, we would suppose it to be rare. Alas, nothing is 
more common ! How much hypocrisy there is in prayer ! 
Nor is the sin confined to those who are hypocrites from the 
root. Some are all hypocrisy ; and even the best are not 
entirely free from it. It was to genuine disciples that 
Jesus said, " Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees which 
is hjrpocrisy.'' It spreads like leaven. Both prayer and 
watchfulness are needed to keep or cast it out. 



kS BEEN IN THE EFFECTS OF THE GOSPEL. 169 

He who permits the wisdom that is from above to im- 
press his heart and form his character, will be without 
hypocrisy in his intercourse with men. But although 
the seal is perfect, the human soul, at the best, imper- 
fectly receives the image. Portions of the " stony 
heart" never fully softened, remain unshapely even after 
the heavenly type has been applied. None can compute 
the number or measure the magnitude of the defects. 
But in Christians a likeness to Christ's sincerity has 
been begun; it is their business to hold fast and press 
on ; it is his prerogative to make the likeness perfect in 
his own time and by his own power. 

As there was no partiality and no hypocrisy in re- 
deeming love when it came down to earth, there will be 
none in redeemed men when they rise to heaven. There 
could not be " peace on earth" while these thorns were 
tearing us at every movement. " This is not your rest 
because it is polluted." When partiality and hypocrisy 
are wholly and for ever put off, the weary will be glad. 
When that which is perfect has come, there will no longer 
be any temptation to partiality, for all will be alike 
lovely ; no longer any temptation to hypocrisy, for each 
will truly be all that himself — that angels — ^that God 
could desire. 



170 CORRECTED ESTIMATES. 

XI. 
CORRECTED ESTIMATES. 

" Honour all men." — 1 Peter ii, 17. 

Here are three distinct ideas closely interwoven and re- 
ciprocally affecting each other, yet capable in some mea- 
sure of being separated, and so subjected to a more minute 
analysis. I shall employ the term ''value" instead of 
" honour," as equivalent to " esteem,'' which the tran- 
slators have placed in the margin, and, on the whole, 
expressing more exactly the apostle's mind. As to the 
method of conducting the inquiry, I find that arrange- 
ment to be practically most convenient, if not logically 
most correct, which simply lays the emphasis successively 
on each of the three English words ; thus : — 

I. Value. 
II. Value men. 
III. Value all men. 

I. Value. On this point some light may be obtained 
by looking to the word itself, and more by observing the 
relation which it bears to others associated with it here. 

] . The root on which this expression grows signifies 
a price or value. This original meaning adheres to it 
with more or less of strictness through all its forms, and 
aU its applications. It is the word which in Matt, xxvii. 9 



COERECTED ESTIMATES, 1 7 1 

has been translated "value :" " They took the thirty pieces 
of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the 
children of Israel did value \' and " honour'' in Matt. 
XV. 4 : " Honour thy father and thy mother." Honour, 
as it is usually understood, is only the external expres- 
sion of the value which you may have set upon the ob- 
ject. You weigh the worth of the man, and honour him 
accordingly. The estimate fixed by the judgment is the 
foundation of the honour expressed by the hps. 

2. We may more fully ascertain and more accurately 
fix the import of the term, by examining its relations to 
others which are associated with it in the context. The 
three first precepts stand by themselves : '' Honour all 
men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God." The series is 
complete. It begins on earth, and ends in heaven. The 
first is a horizontal line lying along the surface of the 
world in contact with all humanity ; the second stretches 
through a higher region where the spirits of the just not 
made perfect yet, are striving to crucify the flesh and 
serve the Lord ; the third is a vertical line, running 
right up to God. The Holy Spirit in this word pre- 
scribes to believers the aflections with which they should 
regard respectively three separate objects. The first and 
lowest of these objects is humanity as it now is, — all man- 
kind ; the next above it is the regenerated, the redeemed 
from among men who are still in the body ; the highest 
is God. One kind of regard is due to human beings, 
however low their state or bad their character ; another 
kind of regard is due to those who are born again, and have 
become members of the family of God ; and yet another 



172 CORRECTED ESTIMATES. 

kind of regard is due to the Creator of all, the Recreator 
of his own. 

We shall better understand the honour due to all men 
when we compare it with the love which is due to the 
brotherhood, and the fear which is due to God. The 
object, in each case so precisely defined, goes far to deter- 
mine /the specific affection with which it should be re- 
garded. In the light of Scripture we may learn the 
reverential, yet confiding worship which is implied in 
fearing God. There, too, with equal distinctness, we 
may learn with what kind of love brother should regard 
brother in the household of faith. The position of these 
two being fixed enables us to determine more precisely 
the bearings of the third. 

They who fear God and love the brotherhood need not 
be much at a loss as to the kind of affection with which 
they should look upon humanity at large. The two higher 
afford the observer a commanding position, and well- 
relieved land-marks, for surveying the last and lowest. 
Where the fear of God and the love of the brotherhood 
are wanting or weak, great errors will necessarily occur 
in the estimate of men. What is it that distracts and 
torments the world, but error in the estimate which man 
forms of his fellow? Some get too much honour, and 
others too little. These extremes have thrown the 
machinery of society out of gear. Hence the adulation 
of the great ; hence the oppression of the poor. 

The man who is godly and brotherly is also humane. 
He who sets a proper value on the higher things, sets 
also a proper value on the lower. Look on men — the 



CORRECTED ESTIMATES. 173 

human race in general — in the light of the fear which 
you owe to God, and the love which you cherish toward 
the brethren ; thus you will neither meanly flatter, nor 
coldly neglect ; you will count the meanest a man, and the 
mightiest no more. 

II. Value men.* The general Scriptural rule, " Be 
imitators of God as dear children" (Eph. v. 1), readily 
admits of application to this particular case. God's 
estimate of man is marked distinctly in creation, and 
more fully manifested in redemption. 

Every step of progress in science is a new discovery of 
the high value which the Maker set upon his creature, 
man. All the nicer relations and uses of plants and 
animals have been arranged with a view to man, for he 
only is capable of observing or turning them to account. 
For him the minerals have all obviously been made, for 
he only can use them. All the rich furniture of this 
world bears obvious marks of having been constructed for 
the convenience of its chief inhabitant. The house was 
arranged, and all its furnishings completed, and living 
creatures destined for servants provided, before men, the 
children of the family, were brought home. All that the 
Father did in constructing this earth and these heavens, 
he did for our sakes. 

But the grandest evidence of the value which God sets 
on man is seen in the mission, and ministry, and sacrifice 
of Christ. The marks which creation contains of a high 

* Although the word corresponding to " men" does not appear in the original, 
the masculine adjective is, in the circumstances, equivalent. 



174j corrected estimates. 

value set upon its intended occupant, have respect to man 
as he was conceived in the eternal council, and as he 
came from the omnipotent hand. But how fallen from 
that high estate and holy character ere Christ came to 
dwell among us ! This immortal being was damaged 
more than we can comprehend when the Son of God took 
our nature, and undertook our cause. The object whom 
he came to seek and save was worthless and wicked. 
But man in his lost estate was still precious in the eye of 
God. So high in heaven was the estimate of even ruined 
man, that, when no other price could buy the captive, the 
Son of God gave himself, the just for the unjust. 

A jewel has dropped from the wearer's neck into a 
deep and filthy sewer. The owner looking from aloft 
loathes the fetid object, and loves it too, — so loves it, in 
spite of its loathsomeness, that, rather than lose it, he 
plunges into the pool, wades among its filth, and feels for 
the lost treasure. If he find it, he goes home rejoicing ; 
and when the jewel has been burnished again, he rejoices 
more than ever to see it on his own bosom receiving 
bright glances from the sun, and throwing them back as 
bright. 

In some such way, making allowance for the difference 
between the finite and the infinite, did Christ set a high 
value on fallen, polluted men. In some such way does 
he now rejoice over those whom he has rescued from 
perdition, and carried into rest. 

The law of the Lord, " Love one another as I have 
loved you," applies to the estimate of human kind in 
their fallen state, as well as to the love of the brother- 



CORRECTED ESTIMATES. 175 

hood who have been begotten again. Christians should 
be like Christ, both in valuing those who are still without, 
and in loving those who are already within. He counts 
much on getting the fallen raised, and he rejoices over 
the raised with more than a mother's love. The only 
right path for us is in his footsteps. 

Value man more than meaner things. 

Your House, for example, is not so precious as its human 
inmates. It is right to keep the house in order, and right 
that children and servants should work for that end ; 
but you ought jealously to watch the comparative estimate 
which you insensibly and habitually entertain of a well- 
kept house, and of those who keep it. If you tenderly 
care for walls and ornaments, careless of immortal crea- 
tures made in the image of God who dwell under your 
roof, you are contending wdth the Almighty, and will be 
crushed in the conflict. In many families of this com- 
munity which are maintained at an enormous expense, 
the comforts of home diminish in proportion as the outlay 
for procuring them is increased. The God of the families 
of the whole earth is dishonoured and displeased when 
things are set over the head of persons. This funda- 
mental error in the estimate vitiates all your calculations, 
and disappoints all your prospects of happiness. Devote 
your chief care to the household, and the house will be 
better cared for. 

Your Farm is, in God's sight, and should be in yours, 
of less value than your farmers. Scotland, as an agri- 
cultural country, owns no superior, perhaps no equal, in 
the world. But a blight lies on this department of our 



176 COKRECTED ESTIMATES. 

prosperity, because we have overvalued our stock and 
undervalued our hands. In many parts of the country a 
system prevails which gives brutes and implements a 
monopoly of care, and abandons men and women to 
moral and physical degra^dation. Houses for cattle are 
ostentatiously raised to the highest pitch of refinement, 
while the men who tend them feed by day and sleep by 
night in dreary, damp, dirty hovels, where cleanliness and 
modesty are not only unknown, but impossible. I bear 
witness of what I have seen ; and I warn my countrymen 
that they cannot steal a march upon the Omniscient so 
as to prosper permanently in their sin. Already retribu- 
tion has begun in the deteriorated moral habits of the 
community. We have got a set of false weights and 
measui'es with which we are cheating ourselves and our 
neighbours. Our measures for men and things must be 
brought into accordance with the royal law : " Whatso- 
ever ye would that men should do unto you do ye even 
so unto them." The willing are already making exertions 
in this department ; but we shall continue exposed to pro- 
vidential retribution until we contrive, on a national 
scale, to compel the unwilling to go and do likewise. 

Our Manufactures are grievously out of joint from the 
same cause. We have practically set a high price on the 
work, and a low price on the workers. The Papists ex- 
hibit a napkin which was used, they say, to wipe the 
sweat from the brow of Jesus, and retains his image still. 
There is at least a fine idea in the fable. If the pale 
hands and haggard countenances of the workers were 
photographed upon the web, the spectre forms, glancing 



CORRECTED ESTIMATES. 177 

from the luscious folds, would startle both the sellers and 
the wearers. But pictures of the neglected and lost, — 
lost, perhaps, because neglected, — are printed somewhere. 
God's image does not go out of God's sight. He recog- 
nises it through rags and squalor which some dainty eyes 
would disdain to look upon. We cannot save every one ; 
perhaps some of us are in a position so humble in itself, 
or so distant from the scene, that we could not save any 
one. We are not responsible for the talents which the 
Lord has not entrusted to our charge ; but we are all 
responsible for obeying this command: '' Honour men.'' 
Value highly immortal beings made in their Creator's 
likeness, and capable yet of living to his praise. We act 
according to our estimates. Estimate humanit}^ aright 
in the habit of your hearts, and your conduct will fashion 
itself naturally accordant, as a river finds its way to 
the sea. Value the whole man, and not merely a 
part. In particular, and for obvious practical purposes, 
value his soul as well as his body, and his body as well 
as his soul. So did Christ ; and therefore so should we. 
The body's sufferings did not occupy his attention to the 
neglect of the soul's sins ; the soul's sins did not occupy 
his attention to the neglect of the body's sufferings. 

As the legs of the lame are not equal, a one-sided 
philanthropy is abortive, whichever side it may be. You 
cannot do good to the poor by merely supplying his 
material wants. Unless you lift his spirit from despair 
into hope, and lead his spirit from darkness to light, 
your gifts go all into a bag with holes. You must be 
always giving, and yet he is never full. On the other 



178 CORRECTED ESTIMATES. 

side, the ordinary path to the soul lies through the body's 
senses, and aU your efforts for spiritual good may prove 
abortive, if you do not clear material obstructions out of 
your way. Do good to the whole man as you have 
opportunity. Neglect not to entertain these strangers 
that step about in human form upon the earth, for in so 
doing you entertain angels unawares, — fallen, indeed, 
but capable yet of a glorious immortality. 

III. Value all men. 

There is no respect of persons with God, and there 
should be none with men. When you fail to value 
aright any man or class of men, you are fighting against 
God, and will certainly be hurt. He that falls upon this 
stone shall be broken. Action and reaction are equal 
and opposite. Suppose you and your neighbour are 
walking abreast on a pavement of pure ice ; and suppose 
you put forth your strength to push your neighbour off 
the way on one side, you may perhaps succeed, but the 
same effort at the same time has pushed yourself as far 
from the path on the other side. 

The operation of this principle may be seen in all 
ranks and in aU places. Wherever and whenever a man 
fails to give a neighbour his due, he thereby to the same 
extent injures himself. The machine of Providence brings 
vengeance on the transgressor as its awful wheels move 
round. 

Take an example from the treatment of negro slaves. 
Value all men, says God's word : No, said we till lately, 
and say many of our race in America still, — we shall 



CORRECTED ESTIMATES. 179 

value some men, and others we shall despise. The white 
we shall honour, but not the black. I do not detail the 
facts which prove the delinquency ; I assume these, and 
direct your attention to the retribution which lies hid in 
Providence, and smites the, transgressor with an unseen 
hand. White men cannot push black men aside from the 
right position without pushing themselves as far from the 
right character. The loss which they suffer is greater 
than the loss which they inflict. As it is more blessed 
to give than to receive, so it is more cursed to deprive 
another of his rights than to be deprived of your own. I 
would rather have my condition deteriorated by another's 
violence, than my character deteriorated by my own sin. 

Man's foundation is not like the everlasting hills. It 
is not in his power to push another, and yet not move 
himself The oppressor and the oppressed are by the 
same operation equally, although in opposite directions, 
depraved. As far as the slave is pressed down beneath 
the level into brutish indifference, so far is the master 
thrust up above the level into supercilious pride. As 
deeply as the vice of meanness is scored into the black 
by the lash, so deeply is the vice of arrogance scored into 
the white by lashing. Those are injured by suffering 
oppression, and these by inflicting it. Nothing is gained 
by a false estimate of the value of any man. The circles 
of Providence, like the celestial bodies, correct aberrations, 
and right themselves as they go round. The same sleep- 
less eye, and the same avenging arm, are over masters 
and servants in the economical relations of our own land. 

Yalue the Young. How precious these germs are ! 



180 CORRECTED ESTIMATES. 

These spring-buds are lovely to look upon, but their 
worth is greater than their beauty. An immortal life is 
opening there ; heed it well. Proprietors rear strong 
fences round young trees, while they leave aged forests 
to take their chance. Permit not the immortal to be 
twisted at the very starting of its growth, for the want 
of such protection as it is in your power to afford. By 
failing practically to value little ones at their real worth, 
we both suffer and inflict an incalculable injury. They 
will be the men and women of the generation, when we 
become children again. If they grow crooked for want of 
our care to-day, we shall lack support when we are too 
feeble to bear our own weight. 

Don't spoil these tender, precious things. Tell them 
no lie. Speak no vile or profane word in their hearing. 
Let no drop fall on that polished surface, which may eat 
like rust into the heart, and become the death of a soul. 

Value the Poor and Ignorant. In that state Christ 
valued you, believer. He did not pass you because you 
were worthless. He came to make you rich in grace, and 
to rejoice over you then. 

Value the Rich. We speak here not of the Christian 
brotherhood, but of human kind. Many of those whom 
the world call rich are selling themselves for vile stuff. 
They give themselves for money and show. The rich 
man's soul is more precious than all his riches. If he 
cannot estimate the things at their proper worth, you 
can, and should. He is as precious as the poor, and wiU 
be as worthy, if he is redeemed, when he walks with his 
Redeemer in white. 



CORRECTED ESTIMATES. 181 

Value the Vicious. Although they wallow in a deep 
mire to-day, they have fallen from a high estate, and may 
yet regain it. If one who had been a king's son should, 
in the frequent revolutions of these days, be cast a 
naked and penniless wanderer on our shores, we would 
not think of him as of a common beggar. If he should 
come in want to your door, you would look with a kind 
of awe on him who is the heir of a sovereign house, and 
may yet sit upon a throne. Under his piteous condition 
you would recognise what he has been, and may yet be. 

When an abandoned woman passes you on the street 
do not despise her. Perhaps beneath that bold look 
shame begins to swell, and would burst into repentance 
if it could get an outlet. She is human ; Christ is 
human ; and therefore she may yet be partaker of the 
divine nature. A jewel most precious lies under these 
loathsome incrustations. That is a precious soul. If 
she were snatched from the burning, she might be on 
earth yet a sister beloved, and in heaven a daughter of 
the Lord Almighty. Despise her not as you pass. Let 
your heart glue itself to hers ; and if you must pass, 
unable to draw her from the pit, let it be such a passing 
as will leave your own heart torn and bleeding for the 
outcast whom you cannot save. Let not the frequency 
of such a contact rub your heart hard and smooth, so 
that other victims passing to perdition shall slip easily 
over, getting no grip, and leaving no pain within you. 
Never learn to pass the lost without a sigh, for she is human, 
immortal. If she is lost, the loss is eternal ; if she were 
won, the gain would be unspeakable, to your Lord and you. 



182 COKRECTED ESTIMATEb. 

It is time that the brotherhood in Christ were aroused 
to estimate aright the value of a drunkard, and the 
peculiar danger of his state. They who spurn him away 
in disgust, and they who make merry with his weakness, 
are alike out of their reckoning. We should not lightly 
laugh at him on the one hand ; we should not hopelessly 
give him up on the other. The saddest feature of the 
drunkard's sad case is the tendency that may be observed, 
even among earnest Christians, to give him up as beyond 
the reach of human help. I see that some, even of those 
who are girding themselves for saving work upon the 
world, without saying that the inveterate inebriate is 
absolutely irreclaimable, are deliberately passing by the 
class, in order that they may quarry in other veins where 
experience holds out greater hope of success. The peculiar 
hopelessness of the advanced stage in this form of sin gives 
peculiar force to the maxim, Prevention is better than cure. 

That poor staggering drunkard is worth more than 
worlds, if he were won. If you could win him, he would 
be a crown of joy to you in the great day. " Of some 
have compassion, making a difference : and others save 
with fear, pulling them out of the fire" (Jude 22, 23). 
They who hope in Christ should not count any case 
hopeless. 

Value Yourself. Do not hold yourselves cheap, ye 
who may have Christ for your brother, and heaven for 
your home. This body the Lord has cleansed, that he 
may make it his own dwelling-place, and why should 
these loathsome lusts be permitted to possess and defile 
it ? These lips are needed to support a part in the new 



CORRECTEB ESTIMATES. 183 

song of the redeemed out of all nations, and why should 
they be lent out as instruments of sin? I shall not 
lightly accord my company to every comer, for the King 
is courting it : " Lo, I am with you always, even to tlie 
end of the woi-ld/' 

In estimating the value of yourself, for all the practi- 
cal purposes of life, adopt the standard of the King 
Eternal ; and the value which he attached to the subject 
may be seen in the price which he paid, — "Who loved 
me, and gave himself for me." 



184 THE APOSTLE AND HIGH PRIEST 



XII. 



THE APOSTLE AKD HIGH PRIEST OF OUR 
PROFESSION. 

''Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle 
and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus." — Heb. iii, 1. 

Although this verse is part of an extended argument, it 
may, without injury, be isolated and considered as an 
independent whole. We may safely and profitably con- 
fine our view for the time to the properties of a single 
ring, although, in point of fact, it is a link in the middle 
of a chain. We shall accordingly pass over the external 
relations of the text, though they are intimate and inter- 
esting, in order that we may examine more fully its 
actual contents. These are: — 

1 . The agents : who are exhorted — " Holy brethren, 
partakers of the heavenly calling." 

2. The object: whom they are exhorted to regard — 
" The Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ 
Jesus." 

3. The act: how they ought to regard him — " Con- 
sider him.*^ 

These three do not demand each an equal amount of 
attention. The burden of the exposition lies on the second 
head, — the object of regard ; and to it the others must be 
made subordinate. The second is the main theme; the 
first will serve as an introduction, and the third will as- 



OF OUR PEOFESSION. 185 

sume the form of a practical lesson at the close. The 
first will point forward, and the last will point backward, 
and both to Jesus — " Jesus in the midst/' 

I. The agents. Who are exhorted to consider Christ? 
The " holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling/' 

" Holy brethren." The terms define sufiiciently the 
class of persons to whom this exhortation is directly ad- 
dressed. It is a word, not for those who are without,, 
but for those who are within. The direct and specific 
aim is not to convert, but to edify. Indirectly, the word 
spoken for instruction to the living may, by the ministry 
of the Spirit, become the means of quickening the dead; 
as the word designed for the conviction of sinners may be 
precious for reproof and instruction to saints; but it is, 
notwithstanding, an important practical rule in the 
ministry of the gospel, to divide rightly the word of 
truth between the world and the Church. The apostles 
were not deterred from addressing an assembly specifically 
as Christians, by the suspicion or the knowledge that 
some of the company had no right to their name. If we 
should lay it down as a rule, that we would not address 
an assembly as Christians, until we were sure that none 
but Christians were in it, we should never begin such an 
address until aU need for it were past. We would not 
do that work on earth ; and we need not do it in heaven. 
We should not, on the one hand, deprive the careless of 
the needful convicting reproof, by addressing all to those 
who are already Christ's; neither should we, on the other 
hand, deprive the children of the portion which the 



186 THE APOSTLE AND HIGH PRIEST 

Father sends, by speaking all, and always, for the convic- 
tion of sinners. This we ought to do, and that we ought 
not to leave undone. The appellation, " holy brethren," 
does not give a certificate of regeneration to every person 
included in any Christian assembly. It is the will of the 
Lord to cherish his own in every community, although 
strangers mingling among the children should unwarrant- 
ably appropriate the children's portion, and thereby more 
deeply deceive themselves. We must be like our Father 
in heaven who brings the precious grain to maturity by 
his shining sun, although nettles and thistles ripen also 
in its rays. 

The two terms are interesting separately, and in their 
union. If they do not certify what all the worshippers 
are, they certainly declare what each ought to be. You 
may detect here the twofold division of duty, which from 
its fountain in the decalogue flows down, and penetrates 
all the moral teaching of the Scriptures. These are the 
first and second tables of the law, as they appear when, 
transferred to the soft, yet retentive leaves of a renewed 
heart. Christians get both the first and the second com- 
mandments printed on their life. They love the Lord 
with all their heart, and their neighbour as themselves. 
They are " holy" to God, and "brethren" to men. 

Further, they are " partakers of the heavenly calling." 
The calling is from heaven, and to heaven. It comes 
from above, and invites them thither. It is not of the 
earth in its origin, or its character. Hence, if Christians 
are like their calling, they are strangers and pilgrims here. 
They are sons of a king in exile. Although wanderers 



OF OUR PROFESSION. 187 

in a desert, they are expectants of a throne. Their 
prospects give a tone to their conversation, and even a 
grace to their gait. They walk about on earth, as those 
who are born from above. Their name is Christian ; 
their pattern, Christ. Their calling is heavenly, and 
their character too. 

Such, in some measure, are all the disciples of Jesus ; 
such in perfection they all long to be. 

II. The object. Whom should the holy brethren re- 
gard? " The Apostle and High Priest of our profession, 
Christ Jesus." 

" Our profession'' is the religious system which we 
adopt, — the confession which we make and maintain. It 
indicates profession to God, * and confession one with 
another. We hold the truth, and we hold it together. 
We hold to God by faith, and to our brethren in love. 
It is the confession of the truth in union with all the 
true. 

Our profession is the worship of God, and not idolatry. 
Then, as now, the bulk of the world was idolatrous. 
Men made in God's image worshipped the work of their 
own hands. They were mad upon their idols; they 
loved stocks and stones with an intoxicated, delirious 
love. Man has an instinct for worship. Its extinction, 
whether in a community or in a person, indicates not 
only a want of grace, but also a perversion of nature. 
The worship of a dead idol is a contrivance by which a 
man may gratify the instincts of his spiritual being 
without crucifying his sin, — by which he may worship 



188 THE APOSTLE AND HIGH PKIEST 

according to the original appetite of his nature, and yet 
sin according to the prompting of a depraved will. To 
aU indulged lusts, even in his own children, our God is a 
consuming fire ; therefore idolaters take a cold image to 
their hearts, that their own cherished sins may not become 
within their bosoms the fuel of a torment before the time. 

Our profession is truth revealed by the Spirit of God, 
not discovered by the reason of men. A certain amount 
of truth about God may be discovered from his works by 
human intellect; and some men constitute the exercise 
into a species of worship, apart from the written word 
and the ministry of the Spirit. But, at the best, these 
are only lunar rays. There is no burning in them to 
consume lusts, — no light in them to ripen graces. We 
take revealed truth as our guide to the knowledge of 
God; and when we know him in Christ, we can rejoice 
in all his works. 

Our profession is the Christian's trust in a Saviour 
already come, and not the Jewish expectation of another 
coming. It is not the truth in type and shadow, but 
the truth himself unveiled — God manifest in the flesh. 
Our profession, finally, is not self-righteousness, but faith. 
It is not what I am able to do, but what God is willing 
to give. Our plea is, not that our sins are small, but 
that our Saviour is great. " By grace are ye saved 
through faith." 

Of this profession, the Apostle and High Priest is Christ 
Jesus. Either ofiice is important in itself; and the union 
of both in the person of the Lord Jesus has a distinct 
and peculiar importance of its own. 



OF OUR PROFESSION. 189 

An apostle is one sent out. Missionary, with which 
we have become so familiar in our days, is the same word 
in another language. The one is Greek, and the other 
Latin, but both mean the same thing. An apostle is a 
missionary, and a missionary is an apostle. In these 
days, which are certainly not "without partiality and 
without hypocrisy,'' it is important to assert and vindi- 
cate the identity of these two, in order to check the 
artificial elevation of the one and depression of the other, 
which is at variance alike with Scripture and common 
sense. 

An inexpressible dignity is connected with the mission 
of this Apostle. The sender, the sent, and the errand, 
are all great. The Father sent the Son into the world; 
the Son, sent by the Father, came forth a missionary 
from heaven to earth ; the design of his coming is to 
seek and save the lost. All our missions are copies of 
this great original. When, ourselves in the light, we 
organize and send out a mission to a people who sit in 
darkness, we are endeavouring to be merciful to miserable 
men as our Father in heaven has already been merciful 
to us. Our missions will shine in the darkness, in pro- 
portion as they are reflections thrown off from his. 

He is High Priest too. It is his office to go into the 
holiest with atoning blood, and there plead for the rebel- 
lious. With his own blood our High Priest has entered 
into the heavens, where he ever liveth to make interces- 
sion for us. 

Right in front of us and very near, a thick veil 
stretches all the way across between time and eternity. \ 



190 THE APOSTLE AND HIGH PRIEST ' 

No hand from without can lay its folds open ; no ray 
from within ever shines through. An anxious inquirer 
may strain a lifetime in that direction, but his weary eye 
will never be refreshed by one glimpse of "the things 
that are unseen and eternal." What lies beyond that 
veil ? and what welcome will our spirits get when through 
the portals of the grave they are summoned in? To 
these questions no answer comes. Only the echo of our 
own voice resounds from the dread partition wall to 
mock our ears. God is within, and man is without ; we 
know this, and of ourselves we know no more. What it 
may be to fall into his hands we know not, for none 
have come back to tell. Among guilty creatures waiting 
their time without, there is nothing but " a fearful look- 
ing for of judgment." 

Is there not, among all the principalities and powers of 
the unseen world, one who will bring out the mind of 
God to us, and bear back our case to him ? Is there none 
who may be sent forth, apostle from that unknown to tell 
its secrets, and return high priest to win favour for us at 
the throne of God ? Yes. In the fulness of time, and in 
accordance with prophetic promise, the veil rends, and the 
Son of God comes forth, an Apostle to publish glad tidings 
in this outer world. Having accomplished his mission as 
Prophet, he gave himself the just for the unjust, and entered 
the holiest again as High Priest with his own blood, to 
be our advocate with the Father. 

In his own personal ministry he was first Apostle and 
then High Priest. In the order of time his mission as 
God's representative sent out to us was first accomplished, 



OF OUR PROFESSION. 191 

and thereafter his mission as our representative sent in 
to God. Throughout his personal ministry in the body- 
he acted as Apostle ; at his death, and resurrection, and 
ascension, he became High Priest. As Messenger of the 
covenant he taught the way of life ; by his atoning 
death and triumphant resurrection he opened that way 
to men. That God might have an advocate with us, he 
came into the world the Apostle of our profession ; that 
we might have an advocate with God, he ascended into 
heaven the High Priest of our profession. He came forth 
from heaven to make known God's mercy ; he returned 
thither to be our righteousness and present our plea. 

From Jesus in the midst both an apostleship and a 
priesthood, instrumental and subordinate, flow upward 
to the first of time, and downward to the last ; as the 
sun, before his rising, sends out rays to constitute the 
dawn, and, after his going down, still gilds the evening 
sky. From the beginning of time to the incarnation, 
prophets were Christ's substitute-apostles, acting during 
his absence and in his name ; priests in the same period 
offered those t3rpical sacrifices which bridged the chasm 
of ages, and carried the faith of patriarchs over to fasten 
for life on the divine atonement, offered once for all on 
Calvary. His coming, in both these offices, was like the 
morning. The light of the Justifier shone more and 
more unto the perfect day, when he dwelt among us and 
we beheld his glory. Clearer and more clear the shining 
was from the first rays that mingled with the midnight 
of the fall, down through all the dispensations, until his 
own appearing in the fulness of time. His apostleship 



192 THE APOSTLE AND HIGH PRIEST 

by substitute began at the gate of Eden ; his priesthood 
was exercised in type when the blood of Abel's lamb was 
shed. 

When Jesus as our High Priest passed into the heavens, 
his personal ministry as our apostle ceased ; but he has 
not left himself without a witness. He has left that 
work to his servants. He prescribed their task, and pro- 
mised them aid : " Preach the gospel unto every creature ; 
and, lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the 
world." One sun shines in heaven ; the sea, in all its 
length and. breadth, lies spread beneath it. How many 
ripples stand at one moment on a hemisphere of the 
ocean's surface ? No imagination can conceive the num- 
ber, and yet a sun glances on the edge of every wave. 
How many leaves are trembling in the forest after a 
summer shower ? Yet that one celestial sun reduplicates 
itself in each and all. So, while Christ alone is the 
apostle who makes mercy known to men, a multitude, 
whom no man can number, publish the same salvation. 
Christ, the messenger of mercy, shining on uplifted, recep- 
tive hearts, imprints his own likeness on his people, mani- 
fold as the waves or leaves that glance in the sun of 
summer. Not only every preacher, but every believer 
of the word is an apostle, charged and qualified to make 
it known. When he ascended he left on earth a multi- 
tudinous ministry. Nor is divine commission wanting 
to the meanest : " Let him that heareth say, Come." 
Every face that is " turned to the Lord " shines more or 
less brightly in his blessed light. Epistles of Jesus Christ 
are the best apostles. The more legibly they are written, 



OF OUR PROFESSION. 193 

and the less they are blotted by conformity to the world, 
the* more effectually will their evidence propagate the 
faith. 

In a similar manner the intercession of the High Priest 
in heaven is reduplicated on the earth. " Brethren, pray 
for us," expresses the true instinct of the new creature in 
a time of need. Those who, under Christ and in his 
name, intercede for men, are a more numerous band than 
even the apostles who bear witness of his salvation. All 
who preach in any form to men also pray for them ; and, 
besides these, a great number of the Lord's little ones, who 
lack courage or skill to speak a word for Christ, speak 
in secret to him, for their neighbours and for the world. 

In view of both these offices, he said to his disciples, 
" It is expedient for you that I go away." His ascension 
into heaven spreads both the apostleship and the priesthood 
over the world. In contact with the earth's surface the 
sun would be only a consuming fire ; from the height of 
heaven it sheds down light and heat on every land. So 
Christ, after the daj'^s of his humiliation were done, was 
a " Light inaccessible and full of glory." Under a momen- 
tary glimpse of that light, permitted to pass through the 
veil after the ascension, the disciple who had familiarly 
lain on Jesus' bosom in the days of his flesh " fell at his 
feet as dead." Well might we entreat that the voice 
should not be so spoken — the light not so shown to us 
any more. The arrangement of the covenant is best. He 
has entered his people's forerunner within the veil, and 
there will remain until, through the ministry of the 
Spirit, the kingdoms of the world shall become his own. 



194 THE APOSTLE AND HIGH PRIEST 

Disciples in the body lie towards him, and shine in his 
light. Thus they become apostles to witness his good- 
ness, and priests to intercede for more. 

III. The Act. How the holy brethren should regard 
Christ, " Consider him/' 

The term is different from that which is also ren- 
dered "consider" in chapter xii. 8 of this epistle. Both 
terms signify to consider ; and yet they are not in mean- 
ing precisely the same. In xii. 3, the idea is : Compare 
one thing with another, calculate and cast up the result. 
From heaven God looks down upon the children of men, 
and beholds them absorbed with their gains, neglecting 
the great salvation. They are eagerly summing up their 
columns of profit and loss, without a thought about the 
loss of their own souls, or the need of a Saviour. The 
Spirit by that word points to Jesus, and invites these 
calculators to estimate his worth. Tlie warning is on 
our part needful, — on God's part kind. 

In our text, although the end is very similar, it is 
reached by a different way. The precept here is : 
Observe the Apostle and High Priest of your profession; 
look in that direction; fix your attention on the mis- 
sionary who has brought out intelligence that God is 
merciful, and has gone in to be our advocate and our 
righteousness at the throne of judgment when our case is 
called. It is implied that Christ has come and called; 
that he is waiting for an answer ; that men permit him to 
stretch out his hands all dfiy in vain; that they are gazing 
on vain shows; and that they have not so much as noticed 



OF OUR PROFESSION. 195 

his presence or heard his voice. To these, as they gaze 
with all their faculties absorbed on the mirth of fools, 
going up like the flame of crackling thorns, the word 
comes yet once more ; and its reasonable demand is : 
Turn round, turn from these vanities, and look unto Jesus. 
He is the Light of the world, and the Light is the Life of 
men. "Turn ye, turn ye, why will ye die?" 

Consider him the Apostle. Well we may. When the 
heavens must open, and a messenger come forth bearing 
the mind of God to men, we have cause to rejoice that 
the mission is intrusted to a partaker of our nature. It 
was necessary that we should meet God; to make the 
meeting easy, — to make the meeting possible, God be- 
came man and dwelt among us. Consider Him who 
has brought out the message, for he is "gentle and easy 
to be entreated.'' Those who allow their minds to be 
blinded by the hardness of their hearts, vainly imagine 
that they v/ould have attended to the messenger if he had 
come from heaven in flaming fire, in sight of a wondering 
world. "Show us a sign from heaven," they said, "and 
we will believe." Not knowing God, they cannot know 
themselves. Our Apostle's coming was like dew on the 
mown grass. He came a babe in Bethlehem. For 
authority He who is sent must be divine; but in tender- 
ness to us, divinity at the place of contact, was pointed 
with humanity in its gentlest form. He clothed himself 
with our nature, that we might look upon him and live ; 
he knows well, and he warns us faithfully, that he will 
come in another fashion on another errand, and then 
every eye shall see him. 



196 THE APOSTLE AND HIGH PRIEST 

Although the Apostle has departed, he has left his 
message in the word ; and by his own gracious appoint- 
ment, "great is the company of them that publish it/' 

Consider him the High Priest. He is before the throne, 
charging himself with all the interests of his people. 
Consider him; he has power with God and pity for man. 
When a greatly-grieving, dimly-seeing, feebly-believing 
father had found Jesus, and was leading him in haste 
and hope to the bedside of his dying child, some officious 
members of his family came out to meet him with the sad 
intimation, '*Thy daughter is dead,'' and the foolish advice, 
"Trouble not the master." Little did they know the 
power or the love of Jesus. He is the Resurrection and 
the Life: trouble him even for the dead. It is the de- 
light of the Intercessor to have his hands full of work. 
When the priest within the temple sent the sweet incense 
up, the whole multitude of the people prayed without. 
The Hebrew worshippers, who clustered like bees in the 
outer courts, were encouraged to send up their requests 
to heaven, when they learned by a signal that the type 
of Messiah's intercession was ascending within the sanc- 
tuary made by hands. They will rise up in the judgment 
to condemn us, if, knowing that our High Priest has 
entered in our nature into the holiest, we do not from the 
outer court send up our supplications with strong crying 
and tears. 

As Priest, he is in the heavens listening for our mes- 
sage, that he may present it in his own merits to the 
Father. While he is bowing down his ear to receive 
your requests, do you send in few or none ? If we had 



OF OUK PROFESSION. 197 

no advocate in our nature with the Father, we would 
think and say that the want of hope prevented prayer. 
Having such an High Priest to present our case, let us 
put our case with godly simplicity and filial confidence 
into his hands. Consider Him who is our High Priest, 
and so be encouraged to send many supplications in. 
Send in requests for yourself, that your sin may be blotted 
out, and your heart renewed; that your faith may be 
living and your hope bright; that your life may be his 
epistle, and your death his praise : for your family, that 
those who are bound so closely to you, may be more 
closely bound to him ; that you and yours may be heirs 
together of the grace of life, and dwell together with the 
Lord : for the city, that its Christians may be more 
like Christ, and its dead masses shaken, and brought to- 
gether, and clothed with skin, and raised to life, like the 
bones of Ezekiel's valley : for the world, that its tumults 
may be hushed at last, as the stormy sea became calm at 
the command of Jesus ; that all tongues and peoples may 
learn on earth the common hymn of heaven, "Worthy the 
Lamb that died.'' Having such an High Priest in the 
heavens, why should we, by restraining prayer, leave him, 
as far as we are concerned, standing there all the day idle ? 



198 god's loud call to a sleeping world. 

XIII. 
GOD'S LOUD CALL TO A SLEEPING WORLD. 

" earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord." — Jer. xxii. 29, 

On our rugged and water-worn shores you may often see 
a black wall of stone, as regular as if it had been built by 
human hands, running across the tide-mark from the ter- 
restrial vegetation down to the lip of the water at its 
lowest. It is a trap dyke, forced up when its matter 
was molten, through a fissure in the overlying strata, and 
appearing now a narrow band of rock, totally distinct 
both in colour and in kind from the surrounding surface. 
These protruding portions show that the material of 
which they consist lies in vast masses underneath. -'--^vJ 

So the thin line of our text seems to protrude above 
a broad field of mingled prophecy and fact. It is a nar- 
row band of unique material running athwart a surface 
of common, hard, rugged Jewish life in the later and cor- 
rupter period of the commonwealth. But this outburst 
of divine compassion, making its way through tlie provo- 
cations of Israel, shows that divine compassion, in mea- 
sure infinite, is fiowing underneath ; while the surface of 
the Scriptures is necessarily almost all occupied with his- 
tories and doctrines, prophecies and ordinances, these ten- 
der, eager, burning outbreaks traverse the whole field in 
every direction. Whithersoever we turn, some well-de- 
fined example crosses our path and arrests our attention. 



god's loud call to a sleeping world. 199 

They lie thickest and stand highest on the track of Jesus, 
while he exercised his ministry in the world. See, for in- 
stance, the mass of love, cooled and congealed now to last 
all time, that welled at first liquid and warm from its 
fountain in Emmanuel's breast : "0 Jerusalem, Jerusa- 
lem, how often would I have gathered thy children to- 
gether, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her 
wings, and ye would not I" (Matt, xxiii. S7.) Who shall 
measure the compassion out of which that strong cry 
was projected ? These specimens are thrown up and left 
outstanding, evidence of infinite love beneath. The pages 
of the Bible and the present experience of men consti- 
tute a superficial crust, conglomerate of various materials, 
but all lying over unfathomable depths of mercy. Whether 
thou art reading the Bible or labouring for daily bread, 
" the place where thou standest is holy ground." In him 
we live, and move, and have our being ; and he is love. 

The manner of this cry conveys a reproof to men ; and 

Its matter displays the mercy of God. 

I. The manner of this cry. In form it is obviously 
and intensely peculiar. When the awakener utters such 
a piercing cry, you may conclude that the sleep of the 
sleeper is deep. You may measure the danger which a 
monitor apprehends by the sharpness of the alarm which 
he gives. This is such a call as the compassionate angel 
may have addressed to Lot and his family, lingering among 
their stuff, when the day of Sodom's doom was already 
dawning over the mountains of Moab. The two elements, 
multiplied into each other, which swell into a peal so loud, 



200 god's loud call to a sleeping woeld. 

are the mercy that glows in the warner's breast, and the 
danger to which the sleeper lies exposed. In the mercy 
of God and the misery of men, both elements stand at 
the highest point, and the result accordingly is the 
loudest, keenest call, that can be addressed to human 
ears : " earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the 
Lord/' 

The earth itself, and all the creatures on it under man, 
have a quick ear for their Maker's voice, and, never need- 
ing, never get a call so urgent. The alacrity of the crea- 
tures that lie either above or beneath him in the scale 
of creation brings out in higher relief the disobedience 
of man. 

Physically, earth is wide awake and watchful. It 
courses through the heavens without halting for rest, and 
threads its way among other stars without collision. 
With equal constancy it spins round upon itself, causing 
the day to chase the night, and the night to chase the 
day across all time, as wave chases wave across the ocean. 
The tide keeps its time and place. The rivers roll to- 
ward the sea, and the clouds fly on wings like eagles, 
hastening to pour their burdens into the rivers' spring- 
heads, that though ever flowing they may be ever full. The 
earth is a diligent worker ; it is not the sluggard who needs 
a three-fold call to awake and begin. Equally alert are the 
various orders of life that crowd the world's surface. It 
is when in the ascending scale of creation you come to 
man that you first find a breach of order. " Hear, O hea- 
vens ; and give ear, earth : for the Lord hath spoken, 
I have nourished and brought up children, and they have 



god's loud call to a sleeping world. 201 

rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his owner, and 
the ass his master's crib : but Israel doth not know, my 
people doth not consider' (Isa. i. 2, 3). 

Above our own place, too, angel spirits are like flames 
of fire in the quickness, and like stormy winds in the 
power, with which they serve their Maker. The cry of 
this text is meant for man ; he needs it, and he only. 

On a superficial consideration of the subject, you might 
suppose that the criminal whose guilt is greatest and 
most easily proved, would be the first to hear the ap- 
proaching footsteps of the judge ; but a more exact in- 
quiry into the facts and laws of the case reveals the ter- 
rible truth that sin, in proportion to its amount, makes 
its subject insensible of danger. Guessing results in the 
absence of experience, we would be ready to say, the 
greater the cold to which a man is exposed the less will 
be his tendency to sleep. In point of fact the law is the 
reverse of that supposition. When the polar winter 
threatens to freeze the navigator's blood, rendering con- 
stant and violent exercise necessary to keep the currents 
moving, then it is that the men feel the greatest drowsi- 
ness. It is only by the vigilance of experienced chiefs 
that they are prevented from sinking into a sleep from 
which there is no awakening. This fact, and the law 
which rules it, constitute in the moral region the saddest 
feature in the condition of the world. They sleep most 
soundly who have most need to be wakeful. The cold 
which is ready to congeal life in its fountains, arrests the 
activity which is necessary to preserve life.. The serpent 
charms into stillness the bird that he is about to devour. 



202 god's loud call to a sleeping world. 

The guilt which brings upon a man God's displeasure, so 
stupifies the senses of the man, that he is not aware of 
danger, and does not try to escape. 

The mystery of God's mercj^ to man is, we know, one 
thing into which unfallen angels desire to look ; the 
mystery of man's heedlessness of God must be another. 
Angels, our elder brothers, must wonder both at our deep 
sleep, and at God's long, loud awakening cry. Both mys- 
teries lie beyond their view. 

The spiritual awakening which has lately visited portions 
both of America and of our own land, in connection with the 
interest which it has excited, bears incidental but emphatic 
testimony to the deafness of a slumbering world. Among 
the millions of the population a few thousands have 
started up, and begun to cry, What must we do to be 
saved ? Among the millions who make this world their 
portion, a few thousands have begun to seek first the king- 
dom of God and his righteousness. Among the millions 
who are living in miscellaneous wickedness, a few thou- 
sands, weary of sin, are walking with Christ in newness 
of life. At this phenomenon the whole world wonders. 
Some speak against it as evil; many rejoice in it as good; 
and many are unable to form a judgment or take a side; 
but all are amazed. Alas, that the spectacle is so rare ! If 
conversions were more frequent they would not be noticed 
so much. A rocket which would arrest a thousand eyes 
if it arose red into the air over the city at midnight, 
might rise and fall unseen by day. The crowd that 
gathers to gaze on sparks of light is evidence enough that 
the sun is beneath the horizon. 



god's loud call to a sleeping world. 203 

We wonder now wlien any awake at God's call, and 
seek his mercy ; may the time soon come wdien we shall 
wonder if any do not. 

II. The matter of this cry. 

1. The speaker, — the Lord. 

2. The thing spoken, — the word of the Lord. 

3. The injunction to regard it, — hear the word of the 
Lord. 

1. The speaker is the only living and true God. It is 
essential that our belief in the first principle of religion 
should be well-defined and real. " He that cometh to 
God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of 
them that diligently seek him" (Heb. xi. 6). Keligion 
may be faint and feckless, for want of a foundation in an 
actual belief that God is. I am well aware that abstract 
demonstrations regarding the being and attributes of God 
are not suitable as first lessons in religion for savages or 
children. Explain first that part of the building which 
experience shows to be most easily apprehended, but the 
learner must as soon as possible come to know what the 
foundation is on which the whole structure stands. I do 
not prescribe the order of a Christian education, but the 
Christian education is fatally defective which does not 
leave upon the mind and conscience a practical sense of 
God's being and presence, as the first principle of all 
truth and all duty. Sarah's Egyptian handmaid, driven 
from home by her own high spirit, and the high look of 
her mistress, wandering in the desert alone, helpless when 
human help is needed most, was better grounded in true 



204 god's loud call to a sleeping world. 

religion than many who enjoy more light. Oh, for more of 
Hagar's short but pregnant creed, the genuine utterance 
of a lone woman's heart, " Thou, God, seest me." 

2. The thing spoken is the Word of the Lord. It is 
not enough for us that God is near. He was not far 
from the men of Athens in the days of Paul, and yet he 
was to them " the unknown God." He has broken the 
silence ; he has revealed his will. The word of the Lord 
lies in the Scriptures. There the Creator and the creature 
meet and converse. How precious is the record of the 
interview! Its enemies seem to know its worth better 
than some of its friends. The zeal of Protestants to get 
the Bible brought into human hearts and homes, does not 
favourably compare with the zeal of Eomanists to keep it 
out. A free Bible is the symptom and the cause of true 
freedom in any land. "They are freemen whom the 
truth makes free, and all are slaves beside." 

The word of the Lord in the Scriptures is Mercy. If 
the message brought only vengeance, we could at least 
understand the voluntary deafness of the world. But it 
is strange that men vfill not listen to their best friend; 
strange that the lost should shut their ears against a 
voice which publishes salvation. In the Scriptures, alter- 
nating with the whispers of mercy, the thunders of judg- 
ment resound. The terrors of the Lord are as thickly 
strewn on the surface of the word as his invitations ; but 
it would be an inexcusable and fatal misreading of the 
Spirit's mind to combine these two, so that they should 
neutralize each other, and leave upon a human heart the 
vague impression that there is in the Bible about as 



god's loud call to a sleeping woeld. 205 

much to drive us back as to draw us near. There are in 
the word kind, encouraging invitations ; so far, you will 
acknowledge. But there are also many stern denuncia- 
tions, and those you think greatly modify the mercy of 
other parts. No; these greatly enhance the mercy of 
other parts. These are the crowning marks of mercy. A 
shepherd, foreseeing a snow-storm that will drift deep in 
the hollows of the hill, where the silly sheep seeking re- 
fuge would find a grave, prepares shelter in a safe'' spot, 
and opens its door. Then he sends his dog after the 
wandering flock to frighten them into the fold. The bark 
of the dog behind them is a terror to the timid sheep; 
but it is at once the sure means of their safety, and the 
mark of the shepherd's care. Without it the prepared 
fold and the open entrance might have proved of no 
avail. The terror which the shepherd sent into the flock 
gave the finishing touch to his tender care, and efiect to 
all that had gone before it. Such precisely in design and 
efiect are the terrible things of God's word ; not one of them 
indicates that he is unwilling to receive sinners. They 
are the overflowings of divine compassion. They are sent 
by the good Shepherd to surround triflers on the brink 
of perdition, and compel them to come into the provided 
refuge ere its door be shut. The terrors of the Lord are 
not the salvation of men ; but they have driven many to 
the Saviour. No part of the Bible could be wanted ; a 
man shall live by every word that proceedeth out of the 
mouth of God. 

Still further, and more particularly, " the word of the 
Lord" is Christ. " God, who at sundry times, and in 



206 god's loud call to a sleeping world. 

divers manners, spake in time past unto the fathers by 
the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by 
his Son" (Heb. i. 1, 2). "In the beginning was the 
Word, and the Word w^as with God, and the Word was 
God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among 
us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only be- 
gotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth" (John i. 1 , 
1 4). " The word of God is living, and powerful, and 
sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the 
dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and 
marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of 
the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not 
manifest in his sight : but all things are naked and 
opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to 
do" (Heb. iv. 12, 13). 

The use of the Scriptures is to reveal Christ ; if w^e 
reject him, they cannot give us life. 

8. The injunction to regard that Word, "0 earth, earth, 
earth, hear the word of the Lord.'' The eternal Word has 
come into the world to show us the Father: " Hear ye 
him." 

Saul of Tarsus handled the Scriptures much as a 
Pharisee and doctor of the law; but the letter, in his 
hands dead, did not give him life. Christ the life of men, 
whom the Scriptures held, and held forth, he had hitherto 
resisted. At last, on the journey to Damascus, that Word 
compassing him about like air, and shining in his face 
with a light above the brightness of the sun, cast him to 
the ground, entered his heart, and took possession of its 
throne. " Who art thou. Lord?" said the astonished cap- 



god's loud call to a sleeping world. 207 

tive, and surrendered without conditions. That rock 
rent, that grave gave up its dead at the dying of the 
Lord Jesus. Earth then, in its hardest, deafest bit, heard 
the word of the Lord. 

At the present day not a few of the sleepers are hear- 
ing the voice of the Son of God and coming forth, seem- 
ing in their sudden resurrection, both to themselves and 
their neighbours, as strange as Lazarus in his grave- 
clothes standing in the sun-light. Out of a cave as dark, 
and from a death as deep, many have come of late at the 
call of the same Jesus. 

Several aspects of this shrill warning cry remain for 
consideration, each containing a practical lesson for our 
time and place. 

1. The earth so summoned, has already, in a sense 
most interesting and important, heard the word of the 
Lord. Christ's kingdom is even now more powerful on 
the earth than any other kingdom. The Christian nations, 
so called, rule the world ; and the true Christianity which 
they contain is the source of the power which they wield. 
Government, commerce, and science, are secondary and 
subordinate to the moral element which revealed truth 
contains and supplies. The power that lives in the con- 
science and links itself to God is, in point of fact, the 
most persistent and effective of all the powers which 
mould the character and history of the human race. It 
is great, is growing greater, and will yet be supreme. 

2. The earth through all its bounds will one day hear 
and obey the word of the Lord. Saving truth lying in 
the hearts of saved men has a self-propagating power. 



208 god's loud call to a sleeping world. 

The kingdom of God within its subjects is like leaven hid 
in the meal. Already it has penetrated far into the mass. 
The mission of the gospel among the nations is, " Over- 
tm-n, overturn, overturn, until He come whose right it is" 
(Ezek. xxi. 27). The earth, in our day, is fast falling into 
the hands of those who have the word of God, and permit 
it to circulate among the people as freely as the air of 
heaven. When the preparatory providences have run their 
course, — when the sixth long day's work is done, and the 
seventh angel has sounded, great voices will be heard in 
heaven, and their burden will be the anthem of a millen- 
nial Sabbath : " The kingdoms of this world are become 
the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ" (Rev. xi. 15). 
3. When the earth hears its Lord's word, forthwith it 
calls upon the Lord. They who do not hear cannot 
speak. The deafness is the cause of the dumbness. 
Those who do not hear what God says to them, have 
nothing to say to God. As with an individual, so with 
the earth at large,- — when it ceases to be deaf, it ceases 
also to be dumb. As soon as it hears, it begins to speak. 
As soon as a voice from heaven touches the earth, an 
echo answers up from earth to heaven. Those who sail 
in air-ships among the clouds, as others sail on the sea, 
tell us that every cry which they Utter on high is an- 
swered by an echo from the earth beneath. When the 
earth, spiritually susceptible, receives from heaven the 
sound, "0 earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the 
Lord,'' another cry forthwith arises, " heaven, heaven, 
heaven, hear the petition of sinful men upon the earth." 
God delights in that cry. He loves it as it rises, the 



god's loud call to a sleeping world. 209 

reduplication of his own. God speaks to us by preach- 
ing ; we speak to him in prayer. When preaching is 
not followed by praying, he counts that his word has 
been wasted in the air, and never reached its destination. 
Prayer ascending is evidence to him that his word has 
touched and told on human hearts. When the Atlantic 
telegraph was laid, and the two extremities of one iron 
line were made fast to the shores of opposite and far 
separated continents, a path seemed open for the recipro- 
cal interchange of sentiment between the old world and 
the new. Great was the disappointment when a message 
sent from this side called no response from the other. 
The absence of the answer showed that the message had 
not reached. Some fatal fault affects the channel on its 
passage through the severing sea. So, when no prayer 
comes up to heaven in answer to his call, God counts 
that the earth has not heard his word. Be assured, 
brother, when he speaks to us, he means that we should 
speak to him. 

4. Earth — that is, men in the body — should hear the 
word of the Lord, for to them it brings a message of 
mercy. There may be open ears, when the winning 
words are done. Hear him, earth ; hell will hear with- 
out such urgent exhortations, but will hear no welcome 
voice. Now is the accepted time ; this is the place of 
hope. 

Steamships, not a few of late years, teeming with 
human life, have left one shore of the Atlantic and never 
reached the other. Although no messenger escaped with 
tidings, their fate is now known too well. The huge 



210 god's loud call to a sleeping world. 

mass is rushing through the waters at midnight with the 
speed of a horseman who bears the news of battle to his 
chief, when it stops and rebounds with a crash like 
thunder, and five hundred sleepers start awake with five 
hundred commingling screams. They have heard — these 
swarming, shrieking passengers — they have heard, and 
awakened from their sleep at the cry, but no word of 
hope reaches their open, straining ears. They hear, but 
do not live. 

earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord while 
he holds open the gate of life and calls on the perishing 
to come in. Beware lest the sound that first awakens 
you be the crash of the gate when it shuts ! 

5. Earth — the dust of the dead in Christ — shall hear 
the word of the Lord, and shall come forth. At the 
mouth of a grave where a dead brother lay, Jesus said 
to the sorrowing survivors, " I am the resurrection and 
the life ; he that belie veth on me, though he were dead, 
yet shall he live." Oh for the blessed hope of immor- 
tahty, burning bright within a disciple's heart, and 
shining through his countenance ! The resurrection of 
the dead is a precious, present truth. " Lord, I believe, 
help thou mine unbelief" This body for which Christ 
died, and for which he now lives and reigns, — this body, 
when it is dust, shall hear his voice, and come forth 
glorious like his own. 

Not hewn stone, and carved cedar, and beaten gold, 
but earth is the temple in which God gets true worship, 
and loves to dwell. Partially now, perfectly soon, the 
body of a believer is a consecrated temple of the living 



god's loud call to a sleeping woeld. 2 ] 1 

God. To belie\'e, to know, to feel this, would do two 
things for me : With such faith I would not admit the 
unclean into this temple, for Jesus has bought and claims 
it as his own ; with such faith I would not, when the 
time comes, and the messenger approaches, be frightened 
to let this temple be taken down, for God will raise it 
up again. It is his, and none shall be able to take it, or 
keep it, out of his hands. 



212 WILLING TO WAIT, BUT READY TO GO. 

XIY. 
WILLING TO WAIT, BUT READY TO GO. 

'* For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with 
Christ, which is far better : nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more 
needful for you." — Phil, i. 23, 24. 

I. The two desires. 
II. A Christian balanced evenly between them. 
III. Practical lessons. 

I. The two desires are, 1. To depart and to be with 
Christ ; and, 2. To abide in the flesh. 

1. To depart and to be with Christ. This desire 
is composed of two parts, — a vestibule, somewhat dark 
and forbidding, through which the pilgrim must pass ; 
and a temple, unspeakably glorious, to which it leads the 
pilgrim, as his eternal home. 

(I.) The exodus from this life by dissolution of the 
body — "to depart." 

(2.) Christ's presence the immediate portion of his 
people, when their life on earth is done — " to be with 
Christ." 

(I.) The exodus. The word which in our Bible is 
translated " depart," means strictly to take to pieces. The 
living man is contemplated as a complex machine, and it 
is intimated that at death its joints are loosed, and the 
whole is broken up into its constituent elements. This life 



WILLING TO WAIT, BUT READY TO GO. 213 

in the body is like a watch. By food, and drink, and air, 
it is wound up daily, and so kept going. At last the 
machinery, by gradual wear and tear, or by some sudden 
accident, is brought to a stand. Then it is taken down 
— taken to pieces — in order that it may be purified and 
perfected, and set agoing again, not to measure then the 
changing seasons of time, but to move on, without waste 
or weariness, in a limitless eternity. 

More immediately, the dissolution or untying probably 
refers to the separation of soul and body. The band that 
knit them together is broken at death. The soul escapes, 
and the body, meantime, returns to dust. In this view 
the works of the watch never stand still. When life 
from God was first breathed into that immortal being, 
it was wound up, once for all, to go for ever. At the 
shock of death it is severed from its case of flesh. Outer 
casement, and figured dial, and pointed hands, all remain 
with us, and all stand still. But these never were the 
moving springs. These were shells to protect the tender 
from injury where the road was rough, and indices to 
make the movements palpable to bodily sense ; but the 
vital motion of the departed spirit continues uninter- 
rupted, unimpeded, in a region where no violence is 
dreaded, and no sign to the senses is required. 

You may observe, both in the Scriptures, and in the 
actual history of Christians now, that lively faith is in- 
ventive and skilful, in turning the flank of the last enemy, 
and avoiding the terrors that frown from his front. They 
do not allow their view to terminate in the dark grave. 
They must look, they must move towards the grave ; but 



214 WILLING TO WAIT, BUT READY TO GO. 

they look, at the same time, beyond it. They contrive 
so to lean on the resurrection, as to take away the terror 
of death. They are ingenious in discovering softer names 
for that which is so harsh in nature. For them its cha- 
racter has been changed, and why should they not apply 
to it a new designation? When Jews or Gentiles in 
those early days were converted to Christ, they received 
new names to indicate and commemorate their conver- 
sion. Paul became the Christian name of Saul the per- 
secutor. It was meet that when the waster of the 
Church became the gentle nurse who cherished her, the 
name which was so deeply dyed in blood should be allowed 
to drop, and another adopted w^hich would be fragrant 
with associations of faith, and love, and holiness. So 
when death, king of terrors to the guilty, becomes sting- 
less and harmless to the forgiven, he gets from them a 
new name corresponding to his new nature. Death has 
several Christian names. Sometimes it is called Sleep, 
sometimes Departure ; sometimes the untying of the knot, 
that the immortal spirit may go free. The appellations 
are various, but they all indicate that, from the standing- 
place of them that are "in Christ Jesus," advancing 
death seems more a friend than a foe. 

(2.) The company to which that exodus directly leads, 
— "to be with Christ." It is obvious, and needs no 
proof, that Paul counted on immediate entrance at the 
untying of the knot into the joy of the Lord. He knew 
of no middle state of detention and purgation, either for 
himself or for disciples who might not be so ripe at the 
moment of their fall. Whatever and wherever the place 



WILLING TO WAIT, BUT EEADY TO GO. 215 

of saved spirits may be while their bodies lie in the 
dust, one thing is certain, Christ is there. " The love of 
the Spirit " has made that one point plain, and Christians 
need not care for more. Mark here how well suited 
these promises are to our capacity and our need. Of the 
three points regarding the condition of separate spirits, 
on which information might be thought possible or 
desirable. Where, What, and with Whom, the Scriptures 
deal only with the last. It is well. Information given 
to us about the locality in space where departed spirits 
dwell, or the kind of habitation provided for them there, 
might be in itself true ; but it would obviously be* useless 
to us, because we lack the faculties and the experience 
necessary to understand it. Witness the inconsistent, 
childish, and grotesque legends of Mohammedans and 
Hindoos regarding the position of their paradise, and the 
material riches which it contains. In vivid contrast with 
those vain and vile deceptions, the Bible makes no 
attempt to fix the spot or describe the appearance of the 
saints' inheritance. One thing only it tells Christians 
about the state in which the spirits of the just shall 
dwell, — they shall be with Christ there. " Then were 
the disciples glad when they saw the Lord.'' 

A law, however pure and perfect, cannot be company 
to a person. A thing, though it were the brightest bit 
of God's universe, or that universe itself, could not make 
a person happy. Persons will be miserable, although 
they possess aU power and all wisdom, unless they have 
kindred persons with whom they may hold fellowship. 
What is a man profited, although he should gain a 



216 WILLING TO WAIT, BUT READY TO GO. 

glorious heaven, if his human affections are lost for want 
of a human being to exercise them on. Even true 
believers lag far behind in this department of duty and 
privilege. In this direction there is room for great 
advancement. The pleasure and profit which we derive 
from human society on earth is a matter of experience ; 
greater pleasure and profit await the saved from human 
society in heaven : if there were faith to realize the 
unseen, the hope of the greater in prospect would over- 
balance the less which we already hold in our hands. 
All the good which we enjoy from the society of our kind 
during a whole life-time, is not worthy to be compared 
with the blessedness of having the man Christ Jesus for 
company, where no sin mars the intercourse, and no 
duration brings it nearer to a close. Take human com- 
panionship in the purest, sweetest form that our experience 
in the body supplies, divest it absolutely of all alloy, 
magnify it by aU the value of our Brother's divine nature, 
and extend it to eternity. Such is the company that 
Christians expect. Eye hath not seen, ear hath not 
heard, heart cannot conceive how precious it is. Here is 
a mine, not much wrought now, where the martyrs found 
those riches of grace which we admire in their history^ 
and where the poor may dig at will to-day. 

" Looking unto Jesus " is the act by which Christians 
contrive to gild with blessed hope the horizon of life's 
setting day. Intervening clouds, which seem murky 
from another stand -point, glitter all in gold when the 
observer is so situated that he sees the sun beyond them. 

2. "To abide in the flesh." It is a natural and a 



WILLING TO WAIT, BUT EEADY TO GO. 217 

lawful desire. God has placed us here ; he has visited 
us here ; he has given us something to enjoy and some- 
thing to do here. He expects us to value what he has 
bestowed. Jesus, in his prayer to the Father for those 
whom he had redeemed, puts in a specific caveat : " I 
pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the world." 
What Christ did not desire for Christians, they should 
not desire for themselves. Paul, even when he was ripe 
for glory, positively desired to abide in the flesh ; they 
are the healthiest Christians who in this matter tread in 
his track. 

This is a point of great practical importance in the 
experience of believers. On the one hand, some re- 
belliously cling to this life without respect to the will of 
our Father in heaven. A purpose is secretly cherished, 
determined in its nature, although impotent in eflect, 
" to abide in the flesh " and enjoy it, whether God will 
or will not. On the other hand, true disciples are often 
troubled without cause, by detecting in themselves during 
periods of severe illness a distinct, positive desire for 
longer days. They sometimes expend much needless 
labour in trying to crucify an aflection which is not a 
sin. The love of life ! — it is not necessary, it is not lawful 
to destroy it. Let it alone to the last. The way to deal 
with it is not to tear it violently out, so as to have, or 
say that you have, no desire to remain ; but to get, 
through the grace of the Spirit, such a blessed hope of 
Christ's presence as will gradually balance, and at last 
overbalance the love of life, and make it at the appointed 
time come easily and gently away. 



218 WILLING TO WAIT, BUT EEADY TO GO. 

Such were the two opposite desires that lived together 
in a behever's breast ; let us consider now the weights 
with which each is loaded, so as to maintain a safe and 
easy equipoise. 

II. A Christian balanced evenly between these two 
desires : " I am in a strait betwixt two." From the word 
strait employed in our translation we are apt to take up the 
notion of pain and difficulty. This is not the idea which 
the apostle intended to express. Literally the word 
signifies to be between two, and held by both at the same 
time. In ordinary circumstances, and in the present case 
especially, this is pleasanter and safer than to be held by 
only one. This strait is the happiest condition in which 
a living man can be. It is not a position of distraction 
from which he would fain escape, but a position of solid 
repose. To be grasped and drawn by either of these 
emotions alone would bend and break a man ; to be 
attracted equally by both produces a delicious equilibrium. 

The spiritual fact may be explained by a material 
example. Suppose a man is standing aloft upon a 
pedestal where he finds room to plant his feet and no 
more. Suppose that one neighbour stands near him on 
the right hand, and another near him on the left. If 
one of these grasp and draw him, his posture immediately 
becomes uneasy and dangerous. Under the strain he 
does not keep his footing easily, and will not keep it 
long. But if both should grasp him, either seizing a 
hand, and draw with equal force in opposite directions, 
the result would be an erect attitude and an easy position. 



WILLING TO WAIT, BUT READY TO GO. 219 

Such precisely in the spiritual department is the equili- 
brium of a believer who is held and drawn by both these 
desires at once. It is the strait betwixt two that makes 
him easy. Either of these desires wanting the other 
would distress him in proportion to its strength. 

On the one hand, a desire to abide in the flesh 
without a balancing desire to depart and to be with 
Christ, is a painful condition. The weight hanging on 
one side racks the person all over. Most men are 
crushed in this manner all their days. The Redeemer 
knows this sorrow and provides relief. One specific 
design of his coming was " to deliver them who through 
fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.'^ 
As soon as one of these tremblers is begotten again 
into a living hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ 
from the dead, the balance is restored and deliverance 
effected. 

On the other hand, the converse is equally true, although 
not equally common. To experience a desire to depart, 
unbalanced by a desire to abide in the flesh, is also a 
painful experience. Many Christians pass through at 
least a short period of this unevenness and uneasiness 
before they are set free. Whatever may be the im- 
mediate causes which have made life wearisome to a 
Christian, whenever the desire to abide dies out, the 
desire to depart distracts him. It may be that most of 
us at present would gladly bargain for such a state of 
mind at the close of life, as being the safest ; but it is, 
notwithstanding, and not the less a painful state of mind. 

But besides the general intimation that he was drawn 



220 WILLING TO WAIT, BUT BEADY TO GO. 

simultaneously toward both sides, we find in this text 
the specific quality which on either side exerted the power ; 
the one was "far better" for himself, the other "more 
needful " for his brethren. The gain which it promised 
to himself made the prospect of departure welcome ; the 
opportunity of doing good to others reconciled him to 
longer life on earth. The desire "to be with Christ" 
does not make life unhappy, because it is balanced by the 
pleasure of working for Christ in the world ; the desire 
to work for Christ in the world does not make the ap- 
proach of dissolution painful, because it is balanced by 
the expectation of being soon — of being ever with the 
Lord. 

These two, then, go to constitute the spiritual man. 
These are the right and left sides of the new creature in 
Christ. Where both grow equally, there is no halting ; 
where both have grown well, the step is steady and the 
progress great. 

III. Practical lessons. 

1. This one text is sufficient to destroy the whole 
fabric of Romish prayer to departed saints. Incidentally 
this inspired intimation of Paul's peaceful equipoise scatters 
their mediatorial system like chaff before the wind. If 
the Popish doctrine is true, obviously Paul was funda- 
mentally mistaken. " To depart and to be with Christ '' 
would, in that case, have been far more needful, and more 
useful for his friends who might be left behind in the 
body. In thorough consistency with their scheme, a dead 
saint is a much greater affair in Rome than a living one. 



t 



WILLING TO WAIT, BUT READY TO GO. 221 

A human saint already in heaven is either invested with 
an attribute which, in relation to this earth, is equivalent 
to omniscience, or he is not ; if he is not, of a thousand 
Papists who, in various parts of the world, may be ad- 
dressing the same saint at the same moment, nine hundred 
and ninety-nine lose their labour, while the merely human 
mediator is occupied with one ; if he is, then Paul should 
have said to his brethren, It is far better both for you and 
me that I should depart and be with Christ. One only 
could say with truth, and in the Bible one only has said, 
"It is expedient for you that I go away." There is one 
mediator between God and men. Paul knew that by 
"pains" taken with them, he might do good to his 
brethren as long as he abode in the flesh ; but it never 
entered his mind that, in answer to " prayers'' which they 
might address to him, he could do them any good after 
his departure. 

2. The chief use of a Christian in the world is to do 
good. When the master sends labourers into the field to 
convert it into a garden, idlers only take up room, and 
stand in the way of the willing. Christians are in their 
own sphere like Christ ; it is their meat and their drink 
to do the will of the Father. The command of the 
Saviour and the inclination of the saved coincide in 
sending forth labourers to the Lord's harvest. He who 
has gotten mercy from God is and must be merciful to 
men. They who hope to be with Christ when they 
depart, should so act as that neighbours would count 
them needful while here, and miss them when they go. 

3. You cannot be effectively useful to those who are 



222 WILLING TO WAIT, BUT READY TO GO. 

in need on earth, unless you hold by faith and hope to 
Christ on high. The man who desires to depart and 
to be with Christ is felt to be most needful among 
his brethren. Hope is the soul of successful labour. It 
is the man who is above the world that can do most 
for the world. The old philosopher knew that he could 
not move the earth, however potent his instruments might 
be, as long as he had nothing but the earth to stand upon. 
They who desire to move the world in its spiritual cha- 
racter are subjected to similar conditions. It is only when 
they are "not of the world" that they will have purchase 
on the world, or any part of it, to turn it unto God. 

To labour for lost neighbours without sustaining hope 
in your own soul is a painful process, and comparatively 
ineffectual. It is like an attempt to carry water in a 
vessel with one hand, while the other hand is empty. 
You will not be able to carry much, and aU the bones of 
your frame will be racked by the little which you carry. 
An equal weight on the other side will make the weight 
easy. It was because Paul was loaded on both sides 
that he stood so erect, and walked so steadily under his 
burden. 

4. Living hope of going to be with Christ is the only 
anodyne which has power to neutralize the pain of parting 
with those who are dear to us in the body. When Paul 
looked upon his own children in the faith, who still greatly 
needed his presence, the thought of separation was in 
itseK painful. The bond on this side was strong, the 
attraction on this side powerful ; it was good for him 
that he was drawn with equal force to the other side. 



WILLING TO WAIT, BUT READY TO GO. 223 

Brethren, we all have tender ties to earth and time. 
Children it may be, or brothers, both in the flesh and in 
the spirit, are twined closely round our hearts. We are 
needful to them. This is felt on both sides now, and will 
be felt more tenderly when the hour of separation is 
drawing near. How shall that pang be softened to both 
parties, — to him who is departing, and to those who 
remain ? In one way only : the desire to depart and to 
be with Christ will do it, and nothing else will. How 
good it is, — how necessary to have that hope and trust 
now ! How dreary to be drifting down toward those 
dark and tempestuous narrows before the anchor of the 
soul has been thrown within the veil, and fastened there 
on Jesus ! 

Paul's " strait " is the only easy position on the earth ; 
oh, to be in it ! If you are held by both of these bonds 
you will not fear a fall on either side. Although your 
life, instead of being in your Father's hands, were at the 
disposal of your worst enemy, in his utmost effort to do 
you harm, he would be shut up between these two, — 
either to keep you a while longer in Christ's work, or 
send you sooner to Christ's presence. That were indeed 
a charmed life that should tremble evenly in the blessed 
balance ; — this way, we shall do good to men ; that way, 
we shall be with the Lord. 



224) THE redeemer's tears. 

xy. 

THE REDEEMER'S TEARS. 

" Jesus wept."— John xi. 35. 

Christ is the Revelation of God, and the Scriptures are 
the Revelation of Christ. We need Christ as the Media- 
tor to show us the Father, and the Spirit in the Word to 
show ns Christ. Himself has spoken both these truths : 
They, the Scriptures, testify of me ; I am the way to the 
Father. 

In this short text the Spirit gives testimony to Jesus. 
Here shines a glory of the Lord. It is a wonder greater 
than that which Moses saw in Midian. Here is sorrow 
without sin. Here is human weakness wedded to divine 
power. This is God our Saviour ; and yet this man is 
weeping by the grave of his dead friend. We have not 
yet found out all the meaning that lies in these tears. A 
sign from heaven did they ask ? Here it is. It marks 
the meeting of God and man. How dreadful is this 
place ! Divine power touches human weakness here, and 
human weakness is linked to divine power. Look unto 
Jesus as he weeps ; here the sinful may see God and live. 

In our meditation upon this tender theme, we shall 
not be able to frame and follow out exact logical defini- 
tions. The various constituent elements fuse in our 
hands, and fiow in one channel. Some distinction, how- 
ever, may be made and maintained between the "human 



THE redeemee's teahs. 225 

Want implied, and the divine Supply provided for it in 
the Redeemer's tears. 

In the main, therefore, we shall consider, — 

I. The ailment in man which requires as a salve the 
Redeemer's tears. 

II. The suitableness of this specific for the ailment to 
which it is applied. 

I. The ailment in man, which requires as a salve the 
tears of Jesus. 

The word is sent to heal. Every part of the healing 
word is specifically provided for a corresponding feature 
of the patient's disease. The meaning of the medicine, 
when discovered, throws light on the symptoms of the 
sick ; and, reciprocally, the symptoms of the sick, when 
understood, go far to explain the meaning of the medicine 
which the great Physician ha^^ prescribed. Revealing a 
peculiar and distinctive feature of the remedy, the text 
suggests a corresponding aspect of the patient's case. 
Let us endeavour to find out -; nd fix the specific human 
want which this divine prescription anticipates and sup- 
plies. 

In the religious history of mankind errors rank under 
two great heads or classes. Although the spring of all 
evil is one, the stream that flows from it parts asunder 
soon. The two main constituents diverge into opposite 
channels. One class, believing that God is just, seek 
peace by hiding from his presence ; another make for 
themselves a god who is not terrible to sinners, and 
then fondly worship their own creature. Those adopt 



226 THE kedeemer's tears. 

theoretically a religion which proves difficult, and then 
practically live without their religion ; these, having 
chosen an easy religion, can afford to be very religious. 

These two principles are practically exemplified in the 
conduct respectively of those Protestants and Papists who 
are alike alienated from God in their hearts. "What the 
Protestant has heard about God leaves on his mind the 
impression of a just judge; the unreconciled heart, know- 
ing this, and knowing no more, answers. No God, by a 
life of actual atheism. The Papist, on the contrary, has 
been taught to reverence various idols, departed spirits in 
the unseen world, or pictures hanging on a wall ; and 
these are not terrible in righteousness. Finding that to 
deal with them is not difficult, he deals with them much. 
Hence, while a Christless Protestant forgets God, and 
lives practically without religion, an equally Christless 
Papist spends much of his time in confession to priests 
and prayer to saints. 

For both forms of the disease the Scriptures prescribe 
the appropriate remedies. Where the word of truth is 
rightly divided, there is a portion for each. Our text 
contains the specific, not for Papists who find their God 
so easy to meet, that they can meet him without appre- 
hension in their sins, but for Protestants who find it so 
hard to meet their God that they avoid the meeting 
altogether. For the one class the word in season is the 
terribleness of the living and true God ; for the other class 
the word in season is the tenderness of the one Mediator 
between God and man. To those who furnish themselves 
with false mediators we must proclaim the true God ; to 



THE redeemer's TEARS. 227 

those who know only to dread the true God we must 
make known the one Mediator. 

The persons, then, who specially need this word are 
those who forget God, because the remembrance makes 
them afraid. For the sake of prodigals who will not 
arise and go to the Father the Eedeemer's tears were 
shed. Jesus reveals himself by doing and suffering as 
well as by words. He does nothing in vain. There is 
meaning in every look and every sigh. He was as much 
" about the Father's business " wben he wept beside the 
grave at Bethany, as when, in the last great day of the 
feast, he cried, " If any man thirst, let bim come unto me 
and drink."' You must look unto Jesus as well as hear him. 
You may learn as much of his salvation from the miracles 
of his power and the sufferings of his weakness as from 
his teaching, when he spake as never man spake. There 
is doctrine in his life. All his miracles teem with saving 
truth. All the acts of this wondrous man were wonderful. 
" Jesus wept ; " might not this be counted a miracle too ? 

Come near all ye who complain that religion slips from 
your grasp ; this is the place to hold it by. No man 
hath seen God at any time. " It is a terrible "thing to faU 
into the hands of the living God." " His wrath makes us 
afraid." By the mysterious unsearchableness of the 
invisible God, and the awful justice of the Supreme 
Judge as dimly outlined in the conscience, you have, in 
point of fact, been all your days kept at a distance. 
Your religion has sometimes made itself known as a 
power by taking the pleasure out of time, but never by 
taking the terror out of eternity. The pain which re- 



228 THE REDEEMER S TEARS. 

ligion inflicts is with you a sad reality ; but its consola- 
tions hitherto have flitted past like shadows. You may 
have chimed in more or less passively with the orthodox 
sentiment that godliness is profitable unto all things, 
having the promise of the life that now is, and also of 
that which is to come ; but your real experience has been 
that, though necessary for the future, it is bitter now. 
You have heard with your ears, " Blessed is the man 
whom thou choosest and causest to approach unto thee" 
(Ps. Ixv. 4) ; and felt at the same moment in youi* inmost 
heart that nearness to God is the chief misery of man. 
When your spirit momentarily awakes you see nothing 
but the terrors of the Lord, and therefore you contrive 
to lie in a dormant state. When any measure of religious 
thoughtfulness comes on, it takes all the daylight out of 
your life. As this visitor uniformly proves the disturber 
of your peace, you instinctively and tacitly watch his 
approach and shut the door against him. The biography 
of such a Christian has been written in few words : 
Without God in the world. 

For such a case the Redeemer's tears are a sovereign 
remedy. 

II. The suitableness of the specific for the ailment to 
which it is applied. Such an High Priest became us. 
This is truly God with us. Jesus wept that he might 
get close to us, we close to him. Through that opening 
his compassion comes out, our confidence goes in. 

I believe that religion with many in this favoured 
land wants life and power, because we do not make 



THE EEDEEMER S TEARS. 229 

enough of the manhood of the Mediator. We think of 
him as Almighty God, but we do not feel sure whether 
he is disposed to save or to destroy. His Godhead will, 
indeed, hold up for ever all who are in his favour ; but we 
cannot take hold of him by his Godhead. He found this 
want in man. The display of his omnipotence drew from 
Peter the distrustful cry, " Depart from me, for I am a 
einful man, Lord." When the Church was young, — 
when its few disciples were like little children, he led 
them by the manifestation of his manhood. When for 
needful evidence of his mission he permitted the divinity to 
glance through the veil, the glory dazzled and paralyzed 
those little ones. The favoured three on the Mount of 
Transfiguration were thrown upon the ground in terror, 
and Peter, their spokesman, wist not what he said. 
When he appeared in vision after his resurrection, not 
only Saul his enemy, but also John, his bosom friend, 
" fell at his feet as dead.'' Such is the weakness of man; 
and the methods of Jesus are adapted to the case. Of 
the eternal Son of God we cannot lay hold ; and there- 
fore he shows himself to us as the Son of man. He has 
bowed very low that he might come very near. He 
thirsted on the well-side ; he wept at the grave's mouth ; 
he cried aloud upon the cross, " My God, my God, why 
hast thou forsaken me." At all these openings he mani- 
fests his manhood, that we may be encouraged and 
enabled to take hold of him for eternal life. 

Let us examine now more particularly why Jesus 
wept. The cause of the fact is as wonderful and in- 
structive as the fact itself. The scene is entirely intensely 



230 THE redeemer's tears. 

human througlioufc. This is a brother born for our 
adversity. At Bethany dwelt a family, the intimate 
friends of the man Christ Jesus. He was accustomed to 
turn aside and rest in their house, when wearied with his 
walk from Jerusalem, or his work in it. In process of 
time the brother of that house fell sick and died. When 
Jesus, some days afterwards, came to Bethany, he found 
the surviving sisters enduring one of the sorest, yet com- 
monest sorrows of humanity. A feeble woman stood and 
gazed into the ground beside her brother's grave. As 
he looked on the veiled statue, and saw, perhaps, a shiver 
of convulsive agony beneath the mourner's drapery, he 
knew all the grief which rent that tender heart, and felt 
it at his own. At the sight of her suffering he suffered ; 
seeing her tears falling, he wept too. 

Mark, I beseech you, the commonness of the suffering 
which then drew forth the sympathy of Jesus. It was 
heavy, but it was not strange. We are too apt to con- 
ceive of the Saviour as concerned only about our souls 
and our sins. Thus we keep him distant. By a mistake 
as to the character of his sympathy, we keep the true 
Comforter at arm's length when our hearts most need him 
near. Men think of his divinity, and cry, in some way, 
for the pardon of their sins ; but do not realize his 
humanity, so as to count on his sympathy in their sorrows. 
Nor is this the measure of the loss ; by failing to accept 
the less, we sacrifice also the greater. If we do not grasp 
his humanity for sympathy in common grief, we cannot 
get hold of his Godhead for the saving of our souls. 

It is the incarnation of Emmanuel that affords a point 



THE REDEEMEE'S TEARS. 231 

of contact between God and man. It is in his human 
nature that he reaches us — that we reach him. He fed 
the hungry in the desert ; but the bodily appetite, and its 
supply, he meant to use as an avenue of access for divine 
mercy into human spirits. He healed the ten lepers, but 
he complained of the ungrateful nine, that the act had 
not opened a way for himself into their hearts. When 
the paralytic lay before him, a compassion that was at 
once divine and human wrought in his bosom and flowed 
from his lips. Thy sins be forgiven thee, and, Take up 
thy bed and walk, clung together like the deity and 
manhood in Christ. 

When we put him far from us, we then and thereby 
keep ourselves far from him. You may have observed 
that when you come near the mirror on the one side, the 
image within it approaches nearer on the other ; but that 
as far as you retire on this side, so far the image retires 
on that. A similar process goes on, according to a 
similar law, in the intercourse between Christians and 
Christ. When you count him distant, you feel yourself 
distant ; when he is near to you, you are near to him. 
In particular, when you feel that your Redeemer has 
come down through all spiritual and eternal things, in 
order that he may lay his human heart along yours, and 
share its smallest, secretest sorrows, you get very near 
him, not only with these sorrows which come first in 
contact, but also near him — into his heart, and up to his 
heaven, for all the treasures of his grace, and all the 
hopes of his glory. 

To a mind outwardly instructed, but not inwardly 



232 THE redeemer's tears. 

taught of the Spirit, God, our just judge, seems to stand 
at an inaccessible distance in the highest heaven. From 
that height Christ the mediator seems to descend on our 
behalf, and take up his position on an intermediate stage, 
half way between heaven and earth. Thence he beckons 
us to come, and promises to save. But though he seems 
nearer to us than heaven, and willing to receive us when 
we reach his standing-place, there is still between him 
and us a great gulf which we cannot pass. We have 
not the wings of a dove, ^"hereon we might fly to him 
and be at rest. Although .3 engages to carry us all the 
way to heaven after we hsve climbed up to him, we 
cannot climb up to him, and so lie down despairing. 
Clogged by the body, and sticking fast in the thick clay 
of earthly cares, we never once get up into that region 
where Jesus seems to stand, — where we keep him standing. 
What then? The dupes of the Romish priesthood 
call upon Mary and Peter, and other more doubtful saints, 
to come and help them over and up to Christ. As the 
poor shivering child stands on the gulf's brim, and sees 
Jesus at a hopeless distance on the other side, saints of 
various name and character approach, and undertake to 
bear the trembler over. Those who throw themselves 
into these outstretched arms sink through into the pit. 
The saint was nothing but a shadow, — the shadow of a 
name. But what of us who know full well that these 
manifold mediators are unsubstantial phantoms? What 
of us who intelligently demand credentials, and refuse to 
leap for hfe into the embrace of deceivers? We detect 
and distrust the false offer of help ; but without help we 



THE EEDEEMER's TEARS. 233 

cannot lift ourselves np to a lofty, distant Saviour. What 
then? Then, stand still, and see the salvation of God. 
Lo ! he comes, — he comes over and down to us. He 
stands where we stand ; he looks into our faces ; he 
stretches out his arms ; he clasps us to his breast. He 
does not remain distant, ready to receive us after we have 
by our own energy raised ourselves to yonder height of 
spiritual attainment. , He comes near to bear us first 
from our low estate up to that height, and afterwards 
beyond it, all the way to heaven. He will work the first 
part of our redemption, and the last. He will do all. 
He does not wait for those who can escape from the 
trammels of earth, and arise into the region of the 
spiritual ; he descends to the level of mere humanity, and 
folds in his everlasting love those who lie groaning there. 
" Jesus wept ! " I could not spare that word from my 
Bible any more than I could spare the incarnation or the 
intercession. What although he had done divinely all 
the work, except a little portion at the lower end; 
unable to do that little for myself, the greater, higher 
part accomplished would have beon of no avail to me. 
What although he had come, and come to save, all the 
way from the Godhead down to the spiritual regions in 
the higher strata of humanity; sunk and loaded as I was, 
I could not have soared thither to meet him there. He 
has come the whole way down to us. "Lo, I am with 
you always!'' Look unto Jesus. Behold, he weeps, and 
weeps with a sister at a brother's grave. He does not 
reserve all his concern for our sin; he lavishes his sym- 
pathy also upon our Bjrrows. No chasm remains which 



284 THE redeemer's tears. 

we must pass alone on our way to Christ. He is God 
with us. 

In the life of Jesus as recorded for us by the Spirit, 
there are two weepings. Twice in the body, and on the 
earth the man Christ Jesus shed tears ; but in neither 
case were they shed for himself. Not in Gethsemane, 
not on the cross, did Jesus weep. Both the sorrows were 
for our sakes; but they differed widely from each other. 
"When he drew near Jerusalem, and beheld the city, he 
wept over it; when he saw a bereaved sister mourning 
for a dead brother, he wept with her. The one weeping 
was for human guilt ; the other was for human sorrow. 
The one marks his divine compassion for the sinful; the 
other his human sympathy with the sufferer. Each is 
precious in its own place, but the places are widely 
diverse. The two examples exhibit different qualities of 
the Saviour, and meet different necessities of men. His 
compassion for sinners, manifested in his tears over 
Jerusalem, is a link in the chain by which we are saved, 
but it is an upper link ; his sorrow with a sister beside 
a brother's grave is a link lower down, and therefore 
nearer us. His pity for me as a sinner shows that he is 
great and good ; his weeping with me in my sorrow shows 
that his greatness and goodness are within my reach. 
"When I could not arise to meet him in the region of his 
own spiritual compassion, he has bowed down to meet 
me in my natural weakness. I could not rise to lay hold 
of him, but he bends to take hold of me. Standing where 
I stand, and weeping when I weep, he enters by the 
openings which grief has made into my heart, and gently 



THE BEDEEMER's TEARS. 235 

makes it all his own. My brother, he insinuates himself 
into me through the emotions of our common nature, that 
so I may be borne up with him into the regions of 
spiritual light and liberty. He takes hold of me by my 
sorrow, that I may get hold of him for deliverance from 
my sin. 

The lesson which I desire to take and give in the close 
is this : Do not separate yourselves from Christ in the 
numberless joys and griefs of human life, striving 
to get near him only in the great affairs that pertain 
to eternity. To act thus is to throw away some of the 
sweetest provisions of the covenant. Nor is the sympathy 
of the Saviour limited to one side of human experience. 
While he is a brother born specially for adversity, he is 
equally near and equally welcome in the day of joy. He 
reclined at a wedding in Cana before he stood by a grave 
in Bethany. He is man, and touches man with equal 
tenderness on both sides of his being. If Christians lie 
open at all points for Christ's sympathy, his sympathy at 
all points will stream in. 

Christians, twine your heart round the love of Christ 
in little common earthly things ; this will test whether 
you possess spiritual life, and nourish the regenerate into 
greater strength. To realize the Kedeemer's manhood, 
and nearness, and brotherliness, will make religion more 
easy to the single-eyed, but more difficult to the double- 
minded. To those who love the presence of the Lord, no 
news can be more welcome than that he is near ; to those 
who do not, no news can be more dreadful. God with 
us, in our own nature, compassing our being about, and 



236 THE eedeemer's tears. 

touching our life at every point, as the air bathes every 
outspread leaf, and enters for the tree's sustenance at 
every pore, — this intelligence comes to a living Christian 
like cold waters to a thirsty soul. An Israelite, indeed, 
leaps with joy when he learns that his Kedeemer will be 
to him " as the dew/' 

Open your mouth wide and he will fill it. Keep all 
your being open to all the sympathy of Christ. Do not 
banish him from your earth, and he will not shut you 
out from his heaven. 



THE STEAIT GATE NOT A SHUT GATE. 237 

XYI. 
THE STRAIT GATE NOT A SHUT GATE. 



Because strait is the gate, and narrow is tlie way, which leadeth unto life, and 
few there be that find it." — Matt. vii. 14. 



In the Scriptures, as in God whom they reveal, " goodness 
and severity" are marvellously united and harmonized. 
Sometimes this side, and sometimes that is more directly 
presented to view, but both are present in every exhibi- 
tion of divine truth. When one is set forth in the light, 
the other necessarily remains in shade; and it is by 
alternate presentations that a full and impartial view is 
obtained. When mercy is, in express terms, held forth 
to men, a careful observer may trace the outline of judg- 
ment lying in fainter light behind it; when judgment is 
displayed, it leans on a back-ground of love. The 
sweetest promise holds in solution the terrors of the 
Lord; terrors have mercy in their bosom, and burst in 
blessings on the head of the penitent. " Come unto me, 
ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you 
rest ; " here is a promise, distilling like dew from the 
Lord's own lips; but the other side of that tender word 
is a sword that might pierce the joints and marrow of 
every formalist. If the weary who come to Christ are 
saved, the weary who do not come to Christ perish. 
Again, look to the sharp threatening, " Except ye repent, 
ye shall all likewise perish;" and through the dark tran- 



238 THE STRAIT GATE NOT A SHUT GATE. 

sparency you may read, in lines of light beyond, the 
cheering counterpart, Turn and live. 

Such is the character of the Bible as a whole ; and in 
this respect our text may serve as an illustrative speci- 
men. Every word of God is needed, each in its own 
place, as the sustaining food of his children. The terrors 
are as useful and as necessary as the promises. The same 
God who made day and night to serve different yet con- 
spiring purposes in nature, has exhibited alternate streaks 
of light and shade in the revelation of his will to men. 
Righteousness and peace embrace each other throughout 
all providence and all grace. Wherever mercy is mani- 
fested in the gospel, there is a just God; wherever justice 
frowns, it is making way for mercy. These two agree 
in one. Conspicuously they meet in Christ crucified. 
There "the goodness and severity of God'' are most 
clearly seen. It is beside the cross that you may see a 
sinner saved and a sinner lost. Those who trust in 
Christ cannot be lost ; those who distrust cannot be saved. 

The text is a scroll written within and without. The 
sterner aspect is turned this way. Judgment is the 
direct and ostensible announcement; but mercy lies 
within, and obliquely glances through the folds. While 
the unbending requirements of the divine holiness are 
here proclaimed more loudly, the still small voice of in- 
vitation and encouragement is equally articulate and 
sure. 

We shall glance first at the side of the text which is 
more obviously presented, and then endeavour to read 
the inscription which lies more in the shade. We shall 



THE STRAIT GATE NOT A SHUT GATE. 239 

take nothing out of the text, except what even the less 
instructed may easily see lying in it. Our effort shall 
be, not to bring our own meaning into the text, but to 
bring out of the text, for our own and others' use, the 
meaning with which the Holy Spirit has charged it. 

I. The faithfulness of a holy God, — the meaning which 
lies more obvious on the surface. 

II. The tenderness of a merciful Father, — the mean- 
ing which lies in the heart, and more faintly, but not less 
certainly shines through. 

I. The faithfulness of a holy God. "Strait is the 
gate, and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life, and 
few there be that find it " (Yer. 8). 

Sin has separated man from God, and the whole world 
lies in an " outer darkness.'' In this state all men are 
born, and in this state all abide, unless and until they 
are saved, one by one, in Christ. All the world is a 
way. It is so broad that the whole generation for the 
time travel abreast upon it. Like a river ever flowing 
is the stream of human life, moving along that world- 
wide path. Cold, dark, dead is the mass; outward, 
downward it flows. The world is a lost world. We are 
of it at first, and shall perish with it at last, unless in 
the day of mercy we come out from it, and enter into 
life new creatures in Christ. 

To the perishing a Messenger has come, and the mes- 
sage which he brings is life from the dead. Christ died 
for our sins, and rose again for our justification. To the 



240 THE STRAIT GATE NOT A SHUT GATE. 

poor the gospel is preached. To you, men, he calls, 
and his voice is to the sons of men. Whosoever will, let 
him come. 

Such are the glad tidings that have come from heaven 
to earth. But what sound is this :at grates upon our 
ears, and whence does it proceed? It is the voice of 
Jesus, and it proclaims, " Strait is the gate and narrow is 
the way that leadeth imto life." Strait, narrow, few! 
These are hard sayings, who can hear them? Ah! it is 
still the same as it was in the period of his personal 
ministry. Many when they hear him, and take into 
their minds some faint glimpses of his meaning, go away 
and walk no more with him. Brethren, will ye also go 
away? But to whom can you go, when you flee from 
this speaker? These, though they thunder in an unclean 
conscience like the knell of doom, — these are the words 
of eternal life. There is no gentler Saviour than he who 
utters them; there is no easier path to heaven than that 
to which they point. 

The way that leads down to destruction is broad and 
easy. It requires no exertion, no self-denial, no crucify- 
ing of sinful desires. You have nothing more to do than 
lie like a withered leaf upon the stream, and without a 
thought or an effort you are carried quickly down. Sin- 
ners do not find it difficult to sin. 

But to turn from this broad path unto the narrow 
way of life is difficult. It does not faU in with the 
current of a man's natural affections to follow the Lamb 
in the way of life. The act is above nature; a man 
cannot do it: the act is contrary to nature; a man will 



THE STRAIT GATE NOT A SHUT GATE. 241 

not do it. The terms are, " If any will come after me, 
let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow 
me.'' 

" The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit 
against the flesh ; and these are contrary the one to the 
other " (Gal. v. 17). They who wonld walk with Christ 
must hold themselves ready to cut off offending right arms, 
and pluck out offending right eyes. Men do not like to 
do that even although they know and confess it to be 
necessary. Many stand and shiver on the edge of the 
kingdom, resolving to plunge into it some day, but every 
day postponing the painful act till the morrow. Alas, 
if they stand near the kingdom considering, until death 
overtake them, they will drop on the outside and come 
short of it for ever ! 

I speak here not to the careless who have never ex- 
perienced the pain of conviction, but to the convinced 
who hang back because the step forward is difficult. I 
dare not go about to tell you that it is easy. I cannot 
make a plainer gospel than that which I find here. I 
cannot call that easy which Jesus pronounced hard ; or 
that" wide which he declared to be narrow. A God of 
truth and without iniquity, just and right is he. Heaven 
and earth may pass away, but not one of these words. 
He is the Truth, and he has said, " Strait is the ffate, and 
narrow is the way that leadeth unto life.'' 

The gate unto life is strait Dreams, by their un- 
fettered combinations, give sometimes a better picture of 
great spiritual facts than any of the limited occurrences of 
actual life. It would appear that the human spirit dur- 
Q 



242 THE STRAIT GATE NOT A SHUT GATE. 

ing sleep is less clogged by the body, and capable of a 
freer, wider range. In the visions of the night you may 
have been in some unknown place of great but indefinite 
danger. All was dark above, all slippery beneath, all 
enemies around. You were about to be swallowed up. 
You tried to flee, but your limbs were feeble, they would 
not bear you up; your limbs were cramped, they would 
not carry you forward. By painful efforts, stumbling at 
every step, you reach a lofty wall within which lies 
safety ; but you are exposed without, and unable to climb 
over. At length you discover a door in the wall at some 
distance, and make for the spot with all your might. On 
the way your feet sink in miry clay. After a long- 
struggle you reach the place, only to discover that the 
opening is too narrow to let your body through. But 
as the case is desperate you make an effort. Pressing, 
agonizing in, you are caught on every side. A sense of 
suffocation creeps over you, and you faint away. You 
are glad when you awake, although with a beating heart, 
and find that it is a dream. I have gone into the dim, 
middle region of sleep for a picture, because I have never 
seen one on all this waking world that so truly repre- 
sents the state of the case. The unconverted, when some 
rays of light from the Scriptm'es come into the conscience, 
become alarmed. They apprehend danger, dread hell, 
and cast a longing look to heaven. They would like to 
go into the place where they have been told sinners 
will be safe, but there is no entrance that will admit 
the old man. They are afraid of being cast away, 
and yet are not willing to be stripped of their own 



THE STRAIT GATE NOT A SHUT GATE. 243 

selves in passing through the narrow entrance into 
life. 

There is no wider gate in the wall of heaven for the 
convenience of those who would like to carry in them- 
selves and their sins. Except a man be born agaia, he 
can neither see nor enter the kingdom of God. A freer 
gospel than that is not a true gospel. If sinners are 
saved, either God must change or they. He change th 
not ; nothing that defileth shall enter into his presence. 
In the act of coming, the old man must be put off. It 
is a rending, — it is a crucifying of the flesh. If you 
think it enough to condemn any religious system that it 
runs counter to the strong current of a human will, you 
will reject Christ and the salvation which he brings. 
The offence of the cross has not ceased. He who bare it 
for us warns us plainly that we must bear it with him. 

The chief practical danger lies not in resolving to re- 
main without, but in delaying to arise and press in. I 
think not many — perhaps not one whom I address wiU 
be lost through a formal determination not to agree to 
the Saviour's terms; those who perish under the sound 
of the gospel perish mainly through a delay in closing 
with the offer and the offerer. A disease appears in one 
of your limbs. It is local in its character, and may be 
safely removed from the body; but it is deadly in its 
nature, and if not removed will bring your body to the 
grave. You know the state of the case. You know 
that your life depends on the severance of the infected 
member ; but you shudder at the prospect of the opera- 
tion. You knovf that it must be done, but you do not 



244 THE STKAIT GATE NOT A SHUT GATE. 

like to do it. Most natural! None who has a brother's 
heart will harshly iipbraid you for your weakness. But 
a true friend, although he sympathizes with you in your 
suffering, will give no countenance to your refusal, or 
your procrastination. The poison will soon spread 
through the frame. If the deed is not done to-day, it 
may be done too late to-morrow. 

Brethren, a deadly disease is in your immortal being. 
The part must be put off, if you would enter into life. 
To know and confess that it must be done will not save 
you. To go about sad all your days because it must be 
done will not save you. Nothing will save but doing it. 
There is the gate. It is strait. The compassionate Re- 
deemer of men has told us that it is strait. He will not 
make it wider that the carnal may get through. Although 
a whole world should remain without and perish because 
it is strait, God will not make the entrance easier. The 
terms are clear and fixed. There is no ambiguity, and will 
be no change. The carnal are invited to enter the kingdom 
of God, but it is by a gate which will crush off their 
corrupt nature as they go in. Strive to enter. There is 
no other entrance, and no time to be lost. If it be not 
now, it may be never. 

II. The tenderness of a merciful Father. See now, in 
a series of four separate points, the consolation which the 
text contains: — 

1. There is a gate. When a window is opened in 
heaven to display a terror. The gate is strait, we see 
within, and read the mercy. There is a gate. Such is 



THE STRAIT GATE NOT A SHUT GATE. 245 

the union of mercy and righteousness in God's covenant, 
that wherever one is manifested, the other also is ex- 
posed to view. In the very fact of teUing the sinful 
that the gate is strait, the Scripture makes known for 
comfort to the convicted that there is a gate. While the 
ostensible announcement is, Your corruptions must be ex- 
cluded, the covert intimation is. Yourself may go in. 
In form the text is a stroke directed against a sinful 
man, but in its nature it is intended to take effect only 
on the man's sin to destroy it, and so permit the emanci- 
pated man to enter into the joy of his Lord. 

Within this faithfulness lies love ; the way is not 
easy to the carnal mind, but there is a way. This is a 
father's voice. It is rough, as beseems it, when the child 
is prodigal. The sounds are forbidding, "strait," "narrow," 
"few," — but the words forbid the entrance only of that 
which defileth. A father's heart is yearning beneath this 
stern look. He keeps back the filth, and rags, and em- 
ployments, and associates of the prodigal ; but he receives 
his lost and returning child. The gate is narrow, — tremble, 
self-pleasing, worldly, godless men ; but be of good cheer, 
weeping, heart-broken, conscience- stricken sinner, for the 
gate is not shut. The way is open. Yet there is room in 
the Lord's heaven, — the Lord's heart, — for you. If some of 
the Queen's soldiers were taken prisoners by the enemy, 
and confined in a fortress far in the interior of a foreign 
land ; and if an intimation were conveyed to the captives 
by a friendly hand that, at a certain part of their prison 
walls there is an opening to liberty and home, but that 
the opening is narrow and the path beyond it rough, 



246 THE STRAIT GATE NOT A SHUT GATE. 

their hearts would forthwith fill with joy. They would 
feel already free. Strait gate ! what do they care for its 
straitness? — enough for them that there is a gate. Ere 
that setting sun get round to gild the east again, many 
long miles will be between them and the house of bond- 
age. Surer and safer is their outgate, if slaves to sin were 
as willing to be free. 

2. The gate leadeth unto life. If the passage is dark 
and narrow like the grave, the mansion in which it issues 
is as bright as heaven, and as large as eternity. If one 
set of pleasures must be crushed by the straitness of the 
entrance, another set of pleasures begin as soon as you 
emerge into the light and liberty that lie beyond. If 
you have put off the old man, you have put on the new. 
If the pleasures of sin must be left behind, the pleasures 
of holiness await you at God's right hand for evermore. 
If there is pain in the regeneration, there is gladness in a 
new life. From within the kingdom, even as it exists 
imperfectly on earth, already resounds the hum of a happy 
home ; the strait gate and the new life to which it led 
are woven both into a hymn, and sung in faith by saints 
before they get a sight of glory : " We went through fire 
and water, but thou broughtest us out into a wealthy 
place" (Ps. Ixvi. 12). 

3. Those who enter neither make nor open the gate ; 
they oxAy find it. 

Although the gate is strait, it appears from the text 
that its straitness is not the ultimate reason why so 
few go in. It is not written, Few there be that can 
force through, but, Few there be that find it. Men 



THE STEAIT GATE NOT A SHUT GATE. 247 

spend thdr strength for nought in efforts to escape from 
condemnation where the Mediator has not made a way. 
Though awakened sinners labour in the fires, they can 
never make any impression on the wall of wrath 
that stands between the wicked and the favour of God. 

The first Adam's sin was our way out. We were 
carried out in him before any individual personal depar- 
ture was yet possible. When our individual life begins, 
it begins in a distant place, and with an alienated spirit. 
When one of these strangers in a strange land begins to 
learn the history of man's apostasy, and the alienation of 
his own heart, his first thought is to retrace his steps. 
He has come out from God's favour by sin ; he will return 
by holiness. Forthwith he falls to work in earnest. Alas, 
that way is shut. Outside the frowning barrier swarm 
the multitudes of all kindreds and tongues, who strive to 
be their own saviours. One will give ten thousand rivers 
of oil. Another, more alarmed, and more in earnest, will 
give the fruit of his body for the sin of his soul. Another 
will waste or wound his own flesh at the bidding of a 
priest who will assure him of an entrance. Another, 
without the intervention of any human mediator, will, 
under the spur of an alarmed but unenlightened conscience, 
abandon this life to blank, slavish fear, not daring to 
enjoy any comfort or any hour, in order that he may 
more surely propitiate the judge, and finally make his 
way into heaven. It is all labour lost. There is no 
gate on that side, and you cannot make one. By the 
works of the law shall no flesh be justified. As long as 
the terms are, Keep the commandments, all men must go 



248 THE STRAIT GATE NOT A SHUT GATE. 

away sorrowful, There is no salvation in any or all of 
these efforts. 

Beware of a fatal mistake at this point. When you 
are taught that all your efforts absolutely go for nothing, 
do not imagine that therefore God is indifferent to the 
fulfilment of his own law. He is ready to accept obe- 
dience whenever and wherever it is offered. He does not 
recede from the terms which his ambassador offered in 
the course of his mission : " If thou wilt enter into life 
keep the commandments." It is not that he draws back 
from this bargain ; but that no man fulfils its terms. We 
offer to God what we call righteousness, but it is not 
righteousness. Love is the fulfilling of the law, and no- 
thing but love. As long as you labour to get God's 
anger appeased, it is not love that inspires your effort. 
In the nature of things, a struggle to avert God's anger 
cannot be the fruit of love to God. It is not your love 
of a God who is ready to condemn you that takes his 
condemnation away, but the free removal of the con- 
demnation that makes you begin to love God. Once 
alienated and under condemnation, a man can never gain 
a footing to begin upon, that he may work his way back 
into favour. By the nature both of God and of man, it is 
impossible. The love that would engender obedience, cannot 
itself begin to be, until his anger is taken away. The waU 
meets you on this side, and there is no opening. Christ shows, 
— Christ is the way. In Adam, we came out by his faU ; in 
Christ, we go in on the ground of his righteousness. To be 
in Christ by faith — that is necessary, and that is enough. 
He goes in by righteousness, and bears in aU his own. 



THE STKAIT GATE NOT A SHUT GATE. 249 

All the delay and all the loss occur through the error 
of trying to make a gate, instead of seeking the gate that 
is already made. Its straitness, though hard to nature, 
never yet kept one earnest inquirer out. It is true of 
all who enter that they were stript of their old nature 
in the passage ; but it is true of all who remain without, 
that they perish, not because the gate is narrow, but 
because they expended all their time and strength on a 
side where there is not a gate at all. 

Be of good cheer : that which is impossible is not 
necessary ; that which is necessary is not impossible. 
The word is not. Make a way, but Seek the way that 
Christ has made. 

4. He who made the way, and keeps it open now, is 
glad when many "go in thereat" 

"Few there be that find it!'' Does that word /e'^^ 
resound in your ear as a deep-drawn threat that closes 
heaven against the common throng of average humanity? 
Does it steal over you in hours of solitude, as if it would 
choke the breath of your hope? Do not wrest the Scrip- 
tures to your own destruction. Do not misread and mis- 
represent the plain meaning of the best teacher. He 
takes it ill when his words are turned upside down, and 
his truth thereby changed into a lie. Who said that few 
find the way, and in what tone did he utter the words? 
Jesus spoke them, and spoke them with a sigh. His 
complaint that few are coming is the sweetest and strong- 
est encouragement for all to come. 

What proportion of human kind, in any one, or in all 
generations, shall, in point of fact, be saved, and what 



250 THE STRAIT GATE NOT A SHUT GATE. 

proportion lost, is a question with which we have no 
concern, and which our Teacher expressly refused to 
answer. It is our business not to pry into the secret 
things of God, but to look upon the world as it lies in 
wickedness, and strive to diminish the crowds that are 
thronging the broad way. " Few,'' in the lips of Jesus, 
is not the final summation of the names in the Lamb's 
book of life, after the accounts of time are closed, but the 
invitation to them that are ready to perish, while yet 
their day of grace is running, and before the door is shut. 
Few! but. Lord, are there not a multitude whom no 
man can number already walking with thee in white, and 
many thousands more than Jewish prophets reck of, now 
in the body saved, waiting for the call to rest? Yes ; 
and yet there is room. His soul is not satisfied yet. He 
is yearning for more, and will yearn, as long as one sin- 
ner remains on earth unsaved. Although he saw the lost 
coming to himself, the Saviour, like doves to their win- 
dows, and coming in numbers like the sand on the sea- 
shore, he would still cry. Few, as long as any lingered. 
We owe great thanks to Jesus for speaking this word. 

Enough is a word that sometimes rends a human 
heart, and quenches hope's last feeble rays under a black, 
sufibcating cloud of despair. The great ship, pierced by 
a sunken rock, is slowly settling down in the sea. The 
boats are lowered, and filled with a promiscuous throng 
of young and old, male and female. Each boat shoves 
off as soon as it has taken in its complement. The 
largest lingers longest, because it can take in most. At 
last the stern voice of the officer in charge resounds clear 



THE STRAIT GATE NOT A SHUT GATE. 251 

above the hum of the eager multitude : Enough ; give 
way. That word sank, like the dart of death, into the 
hearts of the helpless remnant who were left upon the 
wreck. 

If Jesus should to-day send a great angel, with a com- 
mission to stand with one foot on the land, and another 
on the sea, and cry. Enough ! heaven is full, and the 
Saviour satisfied has shut the gate ! If one should dream 
that he heard from heaven this dreadful message, and be 
awakened by the shock, how sweetly then would the 
tender plaint of Jesus — Few there be that find it — fall 
upon his startled ear. 

This is the word that meets a man to-day when he 
awakens from the sleep of sin, trembling in terror of the 
judgment. It is the voice of Jesus issuing yet from an 
open heaven. He complains that few are coming ; sin- 
ners are the kind that he came to seek ; he has gotten 
some, and is wanting more, — is wanting you. 



252 GOOD CHEER FOR SAD HEARTS. 

XVII. 

GOOD CHEER FOE SAD HEARTS. 

'* And, behold, they brought to him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed : and 
Jesus, seeing their faith, said unto the sick of the palsy. Son, be of good 
cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee." — Matt. ix. 2. 

A PICTURE, taken from life as it was passing by, and 
fixed on the page of that Word, " which liveth and 
abide th for ever." It represents the sick lying helpless, 
and the physician coming to his aid. Those powers of 
healing which Jesus exercised were peculiarly fitted to 
let his compassion flow on men, and encourage men to 
count with confidence on his compassion. These miracles 
were at once outlets for love from Him, and inlets of 
hope to us. The cures which he wrought were mercy 
embodied that it might be visible even to those who had 
not yet attained the spiritual mind. Love incarnated in 
power grasps the diseased body, in order that thereby it 
may reach for healing the diseased soul. Jesus, in the 
days of his flesh, made the human body his avenue of 
access to the spirit. The ailment of a member became 
the opening at which he entered to possess and purify 
the man. When for his people's sake he personally 
withdrew from earth, and sent the Holy Spirit down, the 
method of administration was changed, but the purpose 
and the result remained essentially the same. The min- 
istry of reconciliation now is spirit witnessing to spirit by 



GOOD CHEER FOR SAD HEARTS. 253 

the word ; but it seemed meet to God, in his wisdom, to 
give the body a more prominent place in the beginning 
of the gospel. Faith, in its feeble infancy, needed and 
got a touch of the hem of Christ's garment as a handle 
and help ; but through the glorious ministry of the 
spirit, faith may now, without any material medium, go 
up into that which is within the veil, and lean for life on 
the unseen Intercessor there. 

The record of these healing works remains as a kind 
of alphabet or first lesson in the faith. Knowing that 
we think and speak as children, our Master in heaven 
gives lessons for beginners in his word. Children are 
taken, taught, touched by pictures ; by pictures, accord- 
ingly, he permits and encourages the little children to 
come unto him. 

The subject here is sin; the lessons thereon mainly 
two, — the first its relation to the body ; the second its 
removal by the Lord. That unfolds the helpless condi- 
tion of fallen man ; and this the glorious grace of a redeem- 
ing God. 

I. SiN" — its relation to the body. 

Sin, we know, is a "spiritual wickedness;" its sphere of 
action, accordingly, is in " high places." Mere matter, 
whether it lie an amorphous clod in the valley, or move 
as an organized living body, cannot sin. We must get 
up into higher regions ere we can reach either moral 
good or moral evil. " God is a spirit, and they that 
worship him must worship him in spirit ;" they who 
offend him offend him in spirit too. Ascending from 



254 GOOD CHEER FOR SAD HEARTS. 

the lower to the higher departments of creation, it is in 
man that we first reach a region where^ sin can be. In 
those high places where a finite but immortal spirit comes 
in contact with the Spirit infinite and eternal, lies the 
only element that is capable of sustaining either spiritual 
purity or spiritual wickedness ; yet though sin draws its 
life-breath in those heavenly places, its members press 
the earth, and leave their marks indented deep over all 
its surface. Though sin lives secretly in the soul, it 
works terribly in the body. 

As sin works outward through the body, punishment 
strikes the body on its way to the seat of sin. The 
rebound of judgment follows the blow of rebellion. Pro- 
ceeding from the heart, its fountain, and passing through 
the outward bodily acts, sin blindly strikes against the 
throne of God; from that throne vengeance returns, like an 
echo, by the same path to the same place. The reward comes 
surely, quickly back on the track by which the work 
went out. " The wages of sin is death." " Death passed 
upon all men, for that all have sinned." 

Death has a deep meaning and many issues. We can- 
not by our searching find it out. None of us have seen its 
other side. Death is like a mighty angel, with one foot 
standing on time, and another on eternity. This last 
enemy strikes the body, as a robber forces open the door 
of a house, in order to reach the treasure that lies within. 
If the soul's life has been hid with Christ in God before 
that last assault, the spoiler will be disappointed of his 
prey. " I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor 
angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, 



GOOD CHEER FOE SAD HEARTS. 255 

nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other 
creaturje, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, 
which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. viii. 38, 89). 

Death to man is in its nature and effects different from 
the dissolution of other animated beings. It behoves us 
to walk by faith here; for if we walk by sight only, Satan 
will get an advantage over us, and notwithstanding our 
sound creed, we shall certainly stumble. The creatures 
whose spirits go downwards die ; and man dies too whose 
spirit goes upward to God who gave it. Unless we re- 
cognise a difference, wide as eternity, between these two 
dyings, we have lost the light of faith, and are wander- 
ing in darkness. 

The blood circulates in the bodies of inferior animals 
precisely as it does in man. The various functions of 
life in them, are performed by corporeal organs analogous 
to our own. As far as the evidence of the senses goes, 
there seems no essential difference between the birth or 
death of one animated being, and the birth or death of an- 
other. Great though the distinction be, unless we have faith, 
and faith in exercise, we shall miss it wholly. An eye must 
be opened in the soul capable of looking not only on things 
seen and temporal, but also on things unseen and eternal. 

Death seems to have been in the world before sin, but 
not the death of man. Marks have been found in the crust 
of the earth, which prove to the satisfaction of nearly all 
intelligent observers, that successive races of creatures lived 
and died on this globe before the period assigned in the 
Scriptures to the creation of men. Bat the science which 
proclaims that living creatures died before sin began, pos- 



256 GOOD CHEER FOR SAD HEARTS, 

sesses no evidence that death touched the creature who is 
capable of sinning, until it came as the wages of sin. 
Hitherto the researches of science, as far as they go, coin- 
cide with the intimations of Scripture. There is no room 
for vaunting on one side, or fear on another. The works 
and the word of God agree. Our business is to read them 
both aright. 

The world, which was at first without form and void, 
was by a lengthened process, and many successive opera- 
tions, made ready at last for man. The head .of a long 
ascending series of animated beings was reached at last. 
There the Creator paused and said, Let us make man in 
our own image. Thus man became a living soul, although 
he was allied to inferior creatures in the material and 
structure of his bodily organization. When God formed 
an immortal being as the climax of his creation, he did 
not make man's material part a paradox in nature. He 
made it according to the analogy of his other works, and 
the most perfect of them all. 

Man, having been made in God's image immortal and 
spiritual, was not subject to dissolution by the laws of 
nature like the beasts that perish. He was separated 
from them not in degree of excellence merely, but in the 
essence of his nature. He was not the brother of the 
brute, but the son of God. Holy man was by creation 
beyond the reach of death. Death came upon him, not 
as the law of his nature, but as the wages of his sin. 
Rebellion against God threw down this second generation 
of his sons as it had thrown down the first. Man fell 
by sin as angels had already fallen. Partaking of the 



GOOD CHEER FOR SAD HEARTS. 257 

nature of the angels in his immortal spirit, and of the 
nature of the brutes in his material body, he became liable 
to both the deaths, — to the separation of the soul from 
God, and the dissolution of the body in the dust. 

But although by his body man participates in the 
death of inferior creatures, his soul cannot die. Anni- 
hilation is not the punishment of man's sin ; the crea- 
tion of another race is not the compensation provided for 
his Maker's loss. 

The method of divine mercy is to raise up the fallen, to 
purify the polluted, to reconcile the alienated, to quicken 
again the dead. All the mansions of the Father's house 
shall one day ring again with the voice of gladness, and 
when angel elder brothers, coming in from their appointed 
labour, shall inquire the reason of the mirth, they shall 
get for answer from the glad Father's lips, as he points to 
regenerated and reconciled man, " This my son was dead, 
and is alive again ; was lost, and is found." To restore 
the lost, to revive the dead, is the design of the gospel, 
is the end of the Lord. This is Christ's errand to the 
earth, and his occupation now in heaven. 

Here is one of that high-born but now prostrate family ; 
here is one of God's grandest temples lying in ruins, and 
God manifest in the flesh coming to that temple with 
intent to restore. " They brought to him a man sick of 
the palsy, lying on a bed : and Jesus, seeing their faith, 
said unto the sick of the palsy. Son, be of good cheer ; thy 
sins be forgiven thee." Disease was there, the fore- 
runner and symptom of the body's death. So far the 
man and his friends plainly saw; but Jesus looked through 

R 



258 GOOD CHEER FOR SAD HEARTS. 

these outer effects to the inner cause. He sees not only 
the paralysis on the man's body, but also the sin in the 
man's soul. This physician goes at a glance to the root 
of the disease. In his view the palsy that stiffens the 
patient's limbs is neither the first nor the last of the case ; 
it is only the middle part that is here exposed to view. 
Jesus, though as man he stands on earth, as God lives in 
eternity. There, beyond our reach, he sees the beginning 
and the ending of the patient's ailment. Sin is the well 
in which it springs, and perdition the sea to which it is 
flowing. When he looks on disease, he sees its beginning 
and its ending : his work is to cut short its course, ere 
it issue in the second death. He looks upward and 
downward : he will not confine his view to these 
symptoms which appear in the body, and pertain to time. 
To prevent the final issue, he removes the first cause. 
Permitting his lips to follow the purpose of his heart, 
he makes no mention of the paralysis, but pronounces 
pardon of the sin. 

By passing over the obvious disease, and speaking of 
only the unseen sin, he shows clearly what his mission is 
not, and what it is. He came not to deliver the body 
from the temporal consequences of sin, but the man from 
its power here, and its presence hereafter. In as far as 
sin causes the dissolution of the body, it is left incurable ; 
for its deeper issues a remedy is provided in the gospel of 
Christ. Although in this and other cases Jesus put forth 
his power to heal disease and lengthen the term of life 
in the body, he made it plain from first to last that this 
portion of sin's wages even redeemed sinners must yet 



GOOD CHEER TOR SAD HEARTS. 259 

receive. He does not by an exercise of omnipotence ward 
off death from the bodies of them that believe, but in love 
and wisdom infinite he turns the curse into a blessing. 
The enemy who comes with intent to destroy the captive 
is not stopped and turned at a distance : he is permitted 
to break open the prison door, and then his hand is 
stayed. After that, death has no more that he can do 
upon the redeemed. The Lord had need of some servant 
of strength sufiicient to break those iron bars asunder, 
and he served himself to this extent of the old destroyer. 
In the first instance, he takes no note of that death which 
was carrying its approaches over the patient's body, pre- 
paratory to the final stroke. Silently he intimates that 
this messenger must sooner or later do his work. Christ's 
mission is not to perpetuate this life, but to lead all his 
people through the gate of death into the life eternal. His 
word, accordingly, is not, Thy body shall not die, but, Thy 
sins are forgiven. 

11. Sin — its removal hy the Lord. In the text and 
its surrounding context we shall find a series of distinct 
yet connected intimations regarding the Physician and his 
method of cure. 

I. It is hy a free pardon that sin is removed and its 
eternal consequences averted. This is the remedy which 
the Saviour has provided for the disease of sin. There is 
no other cure. All other methods either aggravate the 
ailment or deceive the patient by healing slightly the 
superficial wound, while the death poison still remains 
in the blood. " Blessed is the man whose transgressions 



260 GOOD CHEER FOR SAD HEARTS. 

are forgiven," and no other man is really blessed, what- 
ever his profession or his hope may be. 

To shut our eyes and refuse to see the worst in our- 
selves is the part of a fool, although a great multitude 
adopt it. To plunge into business and pleasure, making 
the two succeed each other so closely that there shall be no 
opening left between them for the inroad of uncomfortable 
conviction, is not a safe method of treating the case. To 
forget the sin that is in us will not turn away God's 
anger from us in the great and terrible day. Neither is 
it safe to represent our sins as small in comparison with 
those which others commit : *' They, measuring them- 
selves by themselves, and comparing themselves among 
themselves, are not wise. For not he that commendeth 
himself is approved, but whom the Lord commendeth '' 
(2 Cor. X. 12, 18). The Judge will not decide by our 
measurement, but by his own. To cover the sin which 
lies on the conscience with a layer of earnest efforts to do 
right will not take the sin away : the underlying sin 
will assimilate all the dead works that may be heaped 
upon it, and the result will be a greater mass of sin. 
There is no solid e^round for comfort in the thouo^ht, that 
where all are defaulters one may escape in the throng. 
The Creator of the ends of the earth fainteth not nor is 
weary. He Avorks by law, both in punishing and re- 
w^arding. You may as well tliink that because there are 
many rain-drops in the bursting thunder-cloud some may 
be overlooked, and escape the necessity of falling to the 
gi'ound. All are under law, and their law is to fall by 
their own weight. The sinful are under law, and their 



GOOD CHEER FOR SAD HEARTS. 261 

law is that sin is its own avenger. Yet another unsafe 
method is sometimes tried : it is to let by-gones be by- 
gones, and begin a new score, in the hope that though the 
old is evil the new will be good. The new will be no 
better than the old ; and although it were, the old sin 
unforgiven will be the seed of the second death. The 
soul that sinneth, it shall die. Not any — not all of 
these appliances will avail. When the patient has spent 
all he had on these physicians, he finds, as the only re- 
sult, that his disease has eaten more deeply in, and 
spread more widely out. To cure a soul of sin one thing 
is needful, and that one is enough ; sin must be for- 
given. The cure which we need, and which Christ gives, 
is an absolute and entire removal of the guilt, so that the 
forgiven shall be in God's judgment now, and in his pre- 
sence at last, the same as if he had never sinned. You 
may have observed that provision is made in nature cor- 
responding to the appetites of living creatures, and that 
the appetites of living creatures correspond to the provi- 
sion made in nature for their supply. Thirst and water 
are reciprocally counterparts : so are hunger and food. 
In the new creation the desire and its gratification fit 
as finely. " I, even I, am he that blotteth out thine 
iniquity ; '' behold the provision of the covenant — the 
bread from heaven that drops in the desert ! " Pai'don 
mine iniquity, for it is great;'' behold the appetite where- 
with God's Israel craves the provided food ! That which 
the Father delights to bestow, and the returning prodigal 
pants to receive, is pardon. Pardon, accordingly, the 
Mediator gets from God and gives to the man. At once 



262 GOOD CHEER FOR SAD HEARTS. 

discerning and supplying the cardinal necessity of the 
case, the Physician said to the paralytic, " Thy sins be 
forgiven thee/' 

2. Tlie Saviour to whom this needy man was brought 
has 'power to forgive sins. This is a peculiar kind of 
power. It belongs to Christ in virtue of his finished 
work as his people's substitute. We do not say that, 
apart from the satisfaction of the substitute, God cannot 
forgive sin, simply because we cannot by searching find 
out God; but apart from that satisfaction God does not 
forgive sin. The power to forgive is not the essential 
omnipotence of deity, but the acquired right of Him who 
bore the law's curse, and offered to the law a perfect 
righteousness in our nature and in our stead. It is 
" Christ crucified " that " is the power of God " for the 
pardon of sin. While he hung upon the cross they cast 
in his teeth the taunt, " He saved others, himself he can- 
not save." True, although the speakers knew not the 
meaning of their own words. Because he had become 
security for his people he could not save himself. Even 
He could not save both himself and them from the wrath 
which sin deserves. He bare it that we might be set 
free. There and thereby our Redeemer acquired the 
power to forgive sin. 

3. Christ has power to forgive on earth. The word 
limits the position, not of the Forgiver, but of the for- 
given. He forgave while he walked with men on earth, 
and when he was dying for them on the cross : he for- 
gives now upon the throne of his glory. Either in earth 
or in heaven he can give pardon ; but only on earth can 



GOOD CHEER FOE SAD HEARTS. 263 

we receive, it. Now is the day of salvation ; and this is 
its place. While we are on this earth, and in the body, 
Christ has power to forgive our sin, and he is willing. 
He will cast out none who come. But when a sinner 
passes unpardoned out of time into eternity, even Jesus 
has not power to forgive him then and there. Well may 
the Scriptures ask, '' How shall we escape if we neglect so 
great salvation ? " He who without repentance runs out 
his day of grace, and goes in his guilt through the gates 
of death to the throne of judgment, puts it out of his own 
power to obtain, and out of the Redeemer's power to be- 
stow, forgiveness. '' Depart from me " is the only answer 
which the knocker who knocks too late will ever hear. 

4. The Son of r)ian hath power to forgive. Here is 
great consolation ; the power lies in our Brotlier's hands. 
He who wept with a sister sorrowing, and for a great 
city's sin, possesses the prerogative of pardon, and wields 
it now. To him hath God given authority to extend 
pardon now, and to execute judgment at last, " be- 
cause he is the Son of man." It is in virtue of his 
human nature that the merit of his sacrifice and risj-hteous- 
ness can become ours. It is not enough that Christ is 
God ; that alone would have availed us nothing. He 
who is eternal God became man. By his union with us 
in the same nature all the treasures of the Godhead be- 
come the fountain of our supply. His manhood brought 
his saving power within the reach of man. 

5. Christ the Saviour, in coming to a sinful, suffering 
man, desires not only that he should be safe hereafter, 
but also happy now. " Son, be of good cheer," was the 



264 GOOD CIIEER FOR SAD HEARTS. 

great Physician's first salutation. Read the mind of 
Jesus in his own words and acts ; do not receive the dis- 
torted pictures which lie in an evil heart of unbelief. 
Perhaps no specific wile of the devil is more extensively 
successful than that which represents the company of 
Christ to be, although needful to the dying, a dreary, 
melancholy endurance through the course of life. The 
secret unconfessed apprehension is, that while without ear- 
nest personal religion one cannot die safely, with it one 
cannot hope to lead a cheerful life. No feeling re- 
garding religion is more widely prevalent, yet none is 
more false. At first he came unto his own, and his own 
received him not ; and still men misinterpret the heart of 
Jesus. Draw near, ye who think religion a burden which 
it is necessary but hard to bear, — who think the moment 
a man begins to keep company with Christ he may bid 
farewell to cheerfulness, and lay his account with a life of 
gloom, — draw near and behold this great sight ! Himself 
the Man of sorrows, he knows the sorrows that are in men. 
He approaches the pale, spiritless, trembling paralytic, and 
his foremost word is. Courage ! 

Here is a strange coincidence. On this point, surely, the 
world and the world's Saviour are already at one. Good 
cheer ! Christ and those who have no part in Christ 
agree in that desire. He wlio has all power in heaven 
and in earth expressly desires for us the very thing which 
we all ardently desire for ourselves ; shall we not, there- 
fore, all certainly attain it ? Not necessarily ; there are 
many methods of pursuing happiness — only one of over- 
taking it. 



GOOD CHEER FOR SAD HEARTS. 265 

Every man has his own way of seeking good cheer. 
Money, lands, learning, fame, food and drink, company 
by night or day, amusement, politics, war, and many 
more, have each its own admirers. But must a man 
abandon the use of all that now affords him good cheer 
the moment he becomes a Christian ? No, brother ; 
Christ our Saviour has a tender human heart. He re- 
joiced with them that rejoiced, and wept with them that 
wept. He reclined with friends and relatives at a 
marriage feast, and stood with sisters beside their brother's 
grave, his heart in either case in unison with his com- 
pany, — rejoicing in that place, sorrowing in this. He 
takes no pleasure in depriving his creatures of any enjoy- 
ment. He gives them all good, and gives it that it may 
be enjoyed. But he occupies a higher stand-point than we, 
and commands a wider view. There was plenty of good 
cheer in Jerusalem when Jesus with his disciples was for 
the last time approaching it by the way of Bethany and 
Betliphage. The throng within the city were eating and 
drinking, buying and selling, marrying and giving in 
marriage, when he looked down upon them from the hill, 
and wept. Underneath their merriment he saw unfor- 
given sin, and over it the charged thunder- cloud of 
judgment. He could not join in their joy, because he 
saw that its flickering thorn-flame would soon be quenched 
in wrath. He wept while they laughed, not because he 
was against good cheer, but because he was for it. 

In like manner that same Jesus looks down upon this 
city to-day, and sees its multitudes seeking good cheer 
each in his own way ; but he sees beneath and beyond the 



266 GOOD CHEER FOR SAD HEARTS. 

mirth of fools. He sees sin on the conscience of the 
man, and its wages written in the book of God. His 
desire is that we should have good cheer, not in the 
revelry of a night, but through life, in the hour of depart- 
ure, and when the earth and sea shall give up their dead ! 

In a fertile valley of northern Italy, within the Sar- 
dinian territory, on a certain sunny day of spring, groups 
of country people are gathering, — the young for active 
sport, and the old for the pleasure of looking on. A 
troop of horsemen bearing their own king's well-known 
colours, sweep swiftly across the plain, hurry off the 
whole multitude, and shut them up within the gloomy 
grey walls of a neighbouring fortress. Why should their 
sport be spoilt so rudely, and that, too, by their own 
friends ? A cruel enemy was approaching like a flood, 
and their own watchful prince carried off his defenceless 
subjects to a place of safety. 

In our nature and for us, Jesus has gone into the 
heavens. From that height he sees us down in this low 
place. He takes no delight in the mirth of a thoughtless 
multitude, while a sea of endless sorrow, held off for a 
time by long-suffering Omnipotence, threatens every 
moment to close and cover them. He loves us too truly 
and too deeply to let us laugh away our day of mercy 
with sin unpardoned lying on our souls. To heal the 
sorrows of a human heart, and open there a spring of 
unfailing joy, one thing, in our Eedeemer's view, is 
needful, but one is enough. It is the pardon of sin. 
The Captain of our salvation would first carry us into the 
refuge, and permit us to be jojrful then. 



GOOD CHEER FOE SAD HEARTS. 267 

The charge, openly or covertly made against religion, 
that it is a disturber of the peace, is in one sense true. 
Christ's witnesses, representing their benignant Lord, con- 
fess frankly that his presence in the heart damps the joy 
of unrenewed, unforgiven man. He came not to send 
peace to these, but a sword ; and his way is to plunge it 
into their joints and marrow. He spares not for their cry- 
ing. But, brother, when you fall and faint, look up and 
see the face of Jesus bending over you ; a divine com- 
passion is beaming through. He has sought and found 
you, whoever you are, on whose ear this word falls to- 
day. He has closed with you in the same way as if there 
were not another sinner in the world needing his compas- 
sion. By this word now he holds you, and compels you 
to listen and look. Here is his offer now made to you. 
He desires to make you cheerful, and his way of making 
men cheerful is to forgive their sins. Close with his 
method, and he will make the result good. 

But here is a man whose heart still murmurs, Religion 
should not make people sad. Laying aside all figures 
and forms, — making the word bare that through God's 
gracious help it may go in, I repeat, — He who is at 
enmity with God should not he cheerful. Pardon, 
PARDON is the way to peace. 



268 CHRISTIANS IN DARKNESS 



XYIII. 



CHRISTIANS IN DARKNESS WHEN CHRIST 
IS NOT NEAR. 

" And it was now dark, and Jesus was not come to them." — John vi. 17. 

Certain fisliermen in their boat are crossing the Sea of 
Galilee, and making for their home on its western shore. 
The wind suddenly increases into a gale ; the waves are 
rising; the darkness is settling down ; the men are in dan- 
ger, and are accordingly afraid. But all this happens at 
many times and in many places. Why should these com- 
mon and homely things find a place in such a solemn 
book as the Bible ? This is indeed a step in the daily 
life of some poor labourers, but it is the step at which 
Jesus joins their company. Heaven, bowed down, 
touches the earth at this spot, and glory glances from 
the point of contact. If the spot on the road near 
Damascus where Saul of Tarsus fell v/ere certainly 
known, a traveller would tread reverently over it. 
Little things grow great when they become the hinge 
on which life or death eternal turns. That place can- 
not be accounted common or mean where Jesus met a 
sinner to give life from the dead at first, or refreshing to 
the living afterwards. No monument may fix the spot 
or record its history ; but it is marked in angels' memories, 
and celebrated in the songs of saints. The earth's surface 
will yet be thickly dotted all over with the birth-places 



WHEN CHRIST IS NOT NEAR. 269 

of the King's sons and daughters. These, blending into 
one when viewed from heaven, will make this dull globe 
in its Maker s eyes more glorious than any star that 
sparkles in the firmament. 

Every word, and step, and act of Jesus had a design 
and a significance. He had meat to eat which others 
knew not. He was straitened until his work was done. 
He held to his purpose without wavering, like the sun 
in his course. In all places, among all persons, at all 
times, he was wholly bent on finishing his work. His 
consent at one time and his refusal at another, his sermon 
here and his silence there, his retirement to a desert place 
to-day, and his mingling with the miscellaneous throng 
on the streets of the city to-morrow, were all, and all 
alike, designed and adapted to carry forward his purpose, 
and make his redemption complete. In the life of Jesus 
there was no useless act, no idle hour. Every part was 
vital ; and, as any portion of a living willow, if cut off 
and planted, will itself become a tree, each step of his 
history is separately charged with saving grace. 

This step of his lowly life was directed by the same 
wisdom and love which prompted the plan of redemption 
in the eternal council, and determine the government of 
the world still. Take this text in connection with its cir- 
cumstances, and read the testimony which it contains on — 

I. Christ's thoughts about his disciples ; and, 
II. The disciples' thoughts about Christ. 

Although in the enunciation these two subjects are en- 



270 CHRISTIANS m DARKNESS 

tirely distinct, in the illustration they must, from the nature 
of the case, be permitted in some measure to intermingle. 
It is as if we stood between two mirrors and looked alter- 
nately on either side, in either surface we would see the ob- 
jects which belong to both. On the whole, we shall gain 
in order and distinctness by turning first to the one side 
and then to the other ; but we must not be surprised 
although the same objects should come twice into view. 

I. Christ's thoughts about his disciples : " It was now 
dark, and Jesus was not come to them." 

1. He leaves men, whether the world in general or 
his own people in particular, for a time in fear and 
danger. The text records an isolated act, but it 
is an act in the government of the unchanging One. 
The principle of that act runs through all his adminis- 
tration. What he does at one time he does, with appro- 
priate variations of form, at all times. Accordingl}?-, if 
we look either into the Scriptures or into the history of 
the Church, we shall find that this fact is of a piece with 
the whole texture of his rule. 

After the fall of man the whole world continued long 
in darkness and fear ere Christ came in the flesh. Dark- 
ness covered the earth for many generations before the 
promised, expected Day-star appeared. Long before 
Simeon's day prophets were weary with waiting for the 
Consolation of Israel. 

After the incarnation the same feature often appears 
in his history. He remained thirty years in obscurity 
at Nazareth before he came forth to make redemption 



WHEN CHRIST IS NOT NEAR. 271 

known. He turned his back for a time on the Syro- 
phoenician. woman who faithfully and fondly followed 
him. He remained far distant from Bethany while 
Lazarus his friend was struggling single-handed with the 
great conqueror of men. He lingered on the mountain- 
top alone while these Galileans whom he loved so ten- 
derly were toiling against the storm, and losing heart as 
the darkness fell. At a time when those who had left 
all to follow him were few and feeble, desponding and 
almost despairing, he left the world, and returned to 
heaven. " Thou art a God that hidest thyself" At 
this day also his people sow in tears, and wonder while 
they weep why he does not come like the lightning and 
subdue the nations unto himself. But, — 

2. His delay is not proof of neglect. He yearns over 
a sinning, suffering world, and regards his own with more 
than a mother's love. His delights were with the childi-en 
of men before his abode was among them. The visions 
which godly patriarchs saw were glimpses of his coun- 
tenance, as he bowed his heavens in longing anticipation 
before the fulness of time. 

When, during his personal ministry, he kept back from 
the sufferer or the pleader for a time, the motive for the 
delay was love. Denial made the heathen woman more 
ardent, and the answer at last more welcome and more 
full. The keener the appetite, the sweeter the food. 
Even when of design he remained far from the dying bed 
of Lazarus, he was occupied, and even oppressed, by a 
brother's longing love. Once and again with mysterious 
solemnity he spoke of it to his disciples ; and with them, 



272 CHRISTIANS IN DARKNESS 

when tlie time was come, he hastened to the spot. 
Having wept over Lazarus as man, he called him from 
the grave as God. In all this, and especially in the 
delay, he was carrying out the plans of infinite mercy. 
Having tried and confirmed the faith of his followers, he 
also glorified God in the adversaries' sight. 

Here, too, in the story of the text, a love at once divine 
and human was beating in the breast of Jesus, while he 
prayed alone on that mountain, toward the little band of 
Galilean fishermen who were battling v/ith the waves on 
the stormy lake below. He had a purpose to serve by 
letting them feel the danger : their extremity became his 
opportunity. A longing for his presence grew that night 
in their hearts to its fullest measure, and at his appear- 
ing their joy was correspondingly full. Blessed are they 
that hunger ; and most blessed are they who hunger most, 
for they shall be most fully satisfied. Even when, after 
his resurrection, he ascended into heaven, and left the 
disciples sorrowing, the act was determined by the same 
changeless love. Before he departed, he explained with 
his own lips the reason of his departure : " It is expe- 
dient for you that I go away.'' At the present time, 
although the whole creation groans, as dumb cattle cry 
under pain without knowing what ails them, or what 
would heal, and the new creation intelligently longs, and 
articulately prays, for his coming the second time without 
sin unto salvation, still it is love that detains him within 
the veil. At the set time, — at the best time for the 
Father's glory and his people's good, he will come. Love 
to his own keeps him back till all be ready ; and when 



WHEN CHRIST IS NOT NEAR. 273 

all is ready, love will urge him on. He will come, and 
not tarry. As the lightning comes, so will the Son of 
man come in his glory. 

3. Never and nowhere do they who wait upon the 
Lord wait in vain. Although to weary watchers the 
time seemed long, the coming was sure. He took our 
nature, and dwelt among us. He gave at length all her 
heart's desire to the woman who followed him from the 
coasts of Tyre and Sidon. He visited the sisters at 
Bethany in their affliction, and gave them back their 
brother from the grave. He followed these frightened 
Galileans over the troubled waters, and found them in 
the dark. Faithful is He that promised ; he also will do 
it. To them that look for him he wiU yet come, dis- 
pelling by his presence a thicker darkness, and calming 
a more terrible tempest by his word. 

The ordinances of heaven, the sun, moon, and stars, 
rulijjig the day and the night, the summer and the winter, 
are the surest and steadiest things that men in the 
body know ; to these, therefore, God, their maker, points 
as marks and measures of his own faithfulness. As his 
power in creation has never failed, his promises in grace 
will be all made good. 

How safe is a sinful man who has simply, wholly cast 
himself on Jesus ! The Redeemer loves his own with a 
love that cannot die. He that keepeth Israel slumbers 
not nor sleeps. The sun even in his absence holds up 
the earth all night, and at his coming also brings the day. 
So Christ keeps a soul intrusted to him while it lies in 
darkness, and then dawns on that darkness with the 



274 CHRISTIANS IN DARKNESS 

light of life. The love of a Saviour niiseeii reaches as 
far and holds as firmly as the law by which central suns 
grasp tributary worlds. His coming is like the morning ; 
as sweet and as sure. 

Fear not, little flock; the good Shepherd knows his 
sheep all by name. He is absent, but he thinks of you. 
He feels your weight, and bears it. He longs to have 
you, and will not want you. He remained on the moun- 
tain-top only until his disciples fully felt their own need ; 
and then he brought deliverance. Let none refuse the 
consolation on the one hand, or the reproof on the other, 
on the ground that the danger and the deliverance were 
both seen and temporal things. Our Redeemer became 
bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, that he might 
come closer to us, and that we might come closer to him. 
The transactions of that night on the sea of Galilee and 
the mountain by its shore reveal the heart of Jesus more 
clearly than his coming to the world, or his intercession 
in heaven, because they are bodily human, and palpable 
to sense. The longing of his human heart that night 
towards his absent brethren, and his goings, as God, upon 
the waters to find and save them, mark the line on which 
his love is runniug still. The compassion which he felt 
and the help which he rendered to these poor men are 
graven here as with a pen of iron and the point of a 
diamond, that I, in this latter day of time, may know his 
readiness to pity and ransom me. These lines show how 
the heart of our Redeemer lies. In that direction his 
love goes out, and it goes to the uttermost. To-day he 
is as able and as glad to save from a deeper, darker sea. 



WHEN CHRIST IS NOT NEAR. 275 

II. The disciples' thoughts about Christ. 

It was a matter of the heart ; it was a personal affec- 
tion. Their knowledge of doctrines was very defective. 
They could not have written the Epistle to the Komans ; 
they could not at that time have understood it, although 
it had been written and placed in their hands. In know- 
ledge they were like children ; and like children, too, in 
single-eyed, confiding love. They were born again, and 
so saw the kingdom of God ; but they were new-born 
babes, and therefore could neither give nor take strong 
meat. The understanding was feeble ; but the life was 
real, and its instincts true. 

They had not chosen him, but he had chosen them. 
At his call they left all and followed him. When he 
called the sons of Zebedee from their nets, and Matthew 
from his tolls, he put forth the same power as when he 
summoned Lazarus from the grave ; in every instance, 
and in all alike, it was the mighty power of God. He 
took possession of their hearts in a mysterious way. His 
goings were not seen, as he entered his sanctuary, and 
established his kingdom within his saints. The kingdom 
came, but not " with observation."' Their hearts burned 
within them as he talked to them by the way. So 
closely did he draw them to his bosom, that their hearts 
were inoculated with a love like his own : " He that is 
joined to the Lord is one spirit '' (1 Cor. vi. 1 7). After- 
wards they became more enlightened : under the ministry 
of the Spirit they grew to the stature of perfect men in 
Christ. But perhaps we would be safe in supposing that 
the unintelligent love of the new-born is as delightful to 



276 CHRISTIANS IN DARKNESS 

the Lord, in spite of all its blunders, as the most effective 
service of the most advanced saint. What is awanting in 
skill is gained in simplicity. The most devoted obedience 
of a son, in the might of his manhood, does not kindle in a 
mother a fonder joy than that which thriUed through her, 
twenty years before, when first she noticed the unconscious 
babe blindly feeling for her breast. First love seems best 
love : by leaving it behind, even true disciples greatly 
grieve their Lord. It was when pride had marred it in 
the twelve that " Jesus called a little child unto him, and 
set him in the midst of them, and said. Verily I say unto 
you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, 
ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven '" (Matt, 
xviii. 2, 3). 

The operation of this instinct, at the earliest stage of 
the new life, may be seen in the history of Nicodemus. 
The new creature was stirring within him, but as yet he 
scarcely knew what it was. We cannot tell how often 
in secret he uttered the perplexed question, " Why am I 
thus ?" and got no other answer than the echo of his own 
complaint. But while the intelhgence as yet was unde- 
veloped, the instinct was strong and true. His faith 
was weak in degree, but genuine in character. He came 
at a strange time, but he came to the right person. He 
had little faith, for he did not venture to come in the day- 
time ; but he had a right faith, for he came to the Lamb 
of God that taketh away sin. Those cases that are re- 
corded in Scripture are types, each of its own class ; and 
each class is represented by living specimens in every age. 
Some conversions in our day follow the type of Nico- 



WHEN CHRIST IS NOT NEAR. 277 

demus, some that of Lydia, some that of the Philippian 
jailer. There are diversities of operation under the 
administration of one Spirit. Little-child conversions 
are not unfrequent in our day — conversions in which life 
and love leap into full force at once, while knowledge is 
left behind; to follow step by step as it may. Grace is 
sweet when it is young, whatever the age of the natural 
stock may be on which it is engrafted. The touching 
tenderness of its youth, though not in its nature better, 
is better seen when a man is born again after he is old. 

Such was the spiritual life of these fishermen. It was 
feeble, indeed, and unintelligent, but transparent and true. 
No service rendered by men or angels could be more 
pleasing to the Lord than that longing for his presence 
which wrought in the heart of these Galileans, as the}^ 
toiled to keep their bark afloat in a dark night on a 
troubled sea. As he knelt on the mountain-top in com- 
munion with the Father, he felt these tremblers touching 
him. This is the want of our day ; and the supply of this 
want will constitute a revival We have already a full, 
correct theology treasured in our books, and accepted by 
our reason : we need, in addition, the instinctive throb- 
bing of a loving, longing, confiding heart. 

Having pointed out that tender, child-like love to 
Christ which lives as an instinct in true disciples, and 
acts according to its kind in all circumstances, let us now 
observe, in particular, how it operates in time of special 
trial. 

The waters were permitted to swell and frighten the 
children, although their Elder Brother held those waters 



278 CHRISTIANS IN DARKNESS 

in the hollow of his hand. This is a part of his ways, 
and this part corresponds with the character of the whole. 
The same Jesus, in far-seeing kindness, tries those who 
trust him still. Observe now the direction in which a 
true heart turns in time of need. They manifested no 
stoical indifference to danger ; they had not iron hearts. 
In such a case any one of three experiences is possible, — 
insensibility, despair, and faith. Not to feel the distress 
is inhuman ; to feel it and sink under it is faithless ; to 
feel it, and yet bear up, because the Lord is merciful and 
omnipotent, is Christian. The apostolic precept, borrowed 
from the Bible of the old covenant Church, articulately 
denounces both the extremes of evil : " My son, despise 
not thou the chastenings of the Lord, nor faint when thou 
art rebuked of him." There are two falsehoods ; on either 
side one, and Jesus in the midst. Those true men would 
neither, on the one hand, be bold in the absence of their 
Lord, nor, on the other, faint in fear when he was at their 
side. Between these two rocks they steered steadily, 
safely through, conscious of the danger, but counting that 
all would be well if he were near. 

The storm and the darkness made their hearts quiver, 
and all the more surely, therefore, did these hearts turn, 
and point toward the mountain-top where Jesus, the 
daysman, stood laying his hand upon God. I have ob- 
served that a shipmaster, especially when the presence of 
currents and the proximity of land make his burden 
heavy, shakes the compass sharply, and then watches the 
point on which the quivering needle finally settles down. 
The shaking: makes the master more sure that the needle 



WHEN CHRIST IS NOT NEAR. 279 

points truly to its pole. In those days the magnet was 
not known. No trembling compass on the deck that 
night told the steersman how to hold his helm, after the 
mountains had disappeared in night ; but an instrument 
more mysterious and equally true within those simple 
seamen had been once touched by divine, forgiving mercy, 
and pointed steadfastly now to the Source of saving power. 
It was not the darkness, but the absence of their Lord in 
the darkness, of which the men complained. Feeling at 
his own heart every pulse that throbbed in theirs, Jesus 
rejoiced in the fond longing for himself which the trial had 
produced in those little ones. They think not — they say 
not. If the moon should rise, — if the gale should mode- 
rate, — if the harbour were at hand ; but, If Jesus were 
here. Such single-eyed, artless truthfulness is sweet to 
his taste. No tendency appears in the disciples on this 
occasion to prescribe to the Lord. They do not seem 
even to have formed any definite conception in their own 
minds either as to what they might desire, or he might 
do. If he does not see meet to change the storm into a 
calm, and the darkness into light, he will quell their fears, 
and gladden them with the light of his countenance. 
The thing they desire is his presence ; give them that, 
and they do not even ask whether he wiU take them out 
of trouble, or comfort them in it. 

But these dangers, you say, though great, are material 
and temporal ; whereas the dangers which induce us to 
seek a Saviour are our own sin, and the wages which it 
wins. Well, if these are the burdens which make you 
weary, the more welcome will you be to Christ. He 



280 CHEISTIANS IN DAEKNESS 

cared for men in all their interests. He cured diseases 
and pardoned sins. He brought a blessing to the body 
in order that he might find an open avenue to the 
soul ; and he took it ill when any kept him in the outer 
court. He was willing to relieve bodily suifering ; but 
he was disappointed when the patient remained content 
with an external cure. He loves so well to be a Saviour 
from sin, that he contrives providential openings into the 
heart of the sinful. Blessed are the common trials that 
bring the Physician to the door, for he gladly takes every 
occasion of going in. A weary, longing heart on earth 
will draw the Lord from heaven ; "If any man will 
open, I will come in." 

The example of these Galileans is shown here as in a 
glass, that every mourner may thereby be encouraged to 
long for the presence of the Lord. When a deeper sea 
is heaving underneath, and a thicker darkness closing 
round you, let your heart go out in truthful, fond desire 
to the Intercessor who stood then upon the mountain, and 
stands now on the steps of heaven's throne. He cannot 
withstand your appeal : he will come, and will not 
tarry. Over these waters he will walk until he reach 
you ; and when Jesus has come, you are at the land — • 
the very land you had long been making for, but could 
never see. The moment that the Master comes, the 
disciples are at home. 

A man of strong faith, in the days of old, cried out at 
the entrance of the dark vaUey, " I will not fear," giving 
as the reason of his courage and his comfort, " For thou 
art with me." Acquaint now thyself with him, and be 



WHEN CHEIST IS NOT NEAR. 281 

at peace ; so, in your extremities, the desires of your soul 
•will go right to Jesus. He feels the touch about his 
heart, and he needs no other call. See how he was com- 
manded by the message of confiding love, which, like a 
secret electric current, darted from the members on the 
sea to their Head upon the mountain. He came at their 
call, and made them glad by his presence = I take this 
story as a picture held down from heaven to show us the 
Lord's way in all times and all places. For what 
other reason should it be inserted here ? No prophecy 
and no fact of Scripture is of any private interpretation, 
exhausted by one application, as the grain stalk is cast 
away when the ripened ear is gathered. The word is 
not the stalk which is used once and done ; but the seed 
which multiplies to serve the world in all its breadth, and 
abides for ever to satisfy the latest generation. It has 
descended to me. It hangs within my reach. I will 
take it, and taste it, and trust in God the giver, that the 
food will be as wholesome as it is sweet. Others like it, 
older, and yet as fresh, are hanging near : " Call upon 
me in the day of trouble ; I will deliver thee, and thou 
shalt glorify me '' (Ps. 1. 15). 

One thing is needful, and that one thing possessed in- 
cludes all other good ; " If any man be in Christ he is 
a new creature." John was in Christ as really and 
effectually that night on the sea, as when he leant on 
his Master's breast at supper. It was not necessary to 
get that union effected after the storm came on : it was 
completed before, and exercised then. The children of 
this world are wise in their generation. Telegraph wires, 



282 CHEISTIANS IN DARKNESS 

which unite continent with continent, like nerves of 
sensation between member and member of the great mun- 
dane frame, are laid through intervening seas on the 
choicest days of summer, and used when the tempest 
rages, for making known the danger and demanding 
relief Nothing is impossible with God ; the line may 
be laid when the night is darkest and the storm at its 
height. On Calvary it was so laid between a repenting 
man and a forgiving Saviour ; but although God has 
chosen thus to display his power, the man who prefers 
such a time for seeking salvation is courting his own 
doom. Now — in youth, in health, in comfort, — ^now is 
the time for getting the connection formed ; a day of trial 
is the time for using it. 

Love to Christ in a human heart, kindled there by 
Christ's love to men, and laying hold in turn of the love 
that lighted it, is the one thing needful. Mary had it 
while she sat at Jesus' feet in Bethany : John had it 
while he struggled along with his comrades to keep his 
boat afloat in the gale : a multitude whom no man can 
number have possessed and enjoyed it, in the troubles 
of life and the terrors of a dying hour. If we are in 
Christ our weakness becomes our strength ; our sorrow 
becomes the inlet of a more abounding joy. The dan- 
gers which surrounded these fishermen awakened their 
latent love. Christ, their head, felt its thrill, as instantly 
and surely as a living man feels the pain of a wound on 
any extremity of his body. As the man, without loss of 
time or wavering of purpose, comes with all his might to 
the defence of a suffering member, Christ in his almighty 



WHEN CHEIST IS NOT NEAE. 283 

grace comes at tlie cry of the meanest Christian. His power 
and love are still the same ; and still the same is the need 
of his disciples. The laws of Nature do not grow feeble 
as they grow old : they are as fresh to-day as when they 
first began. They hold up the greatest things with the 
same strength, and grasp the smallest with the same pre- 
cision. Nor is love, God's law in the other department 
of his administration, worn and weary because it has 
lasted long. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to-day, 
and for ever. He feels your burdened spirit leaning on 
his heart to-day, as freshly as he felt the strain of Peter, 
and James, and John, in the time of their distress. It is 
not that they had to do with a real, personal, near, and 
loving Jesus then, and that you have to do with a distant, 
abstract, unsympathizing spiritual principle to-day ; the 
same Jesus hears your cry, and feels the clinging of your 
faith about his heart. A thousand years is with the 
Lord as one day. In his view there is not, as in yours, 
a dim distance of dark ages, between the hold that those 
Galileans took of his love, and the hold that you take of 
it in your need. In his account, John, and James, and 
Peter leant on his arm yesterday, and you lean on it 
to-day. In yourselves you are as needy, and to the Lord 
you are as welcome as they. He puts himself in your 
power ; " Lo, I am with you always." Draw, and you 
will draw him from heaven for your help. 

While the ailment of the world at large is its enmity 
against God, the true want of the Church in the world is 
the languor of its look unto Jesus. The measure of 
intensity to which it rises in a time of revival is 



284 CHEISTIANS IN DARKNESS, ETC. 

marked with very peculiar emphasis in Psalm cxxx. : 
" My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch 
for the morning; they that watch for the morning." 
Many of us have learned by experience, at some period 
of our lives, what it is to long for the morning as if it 
were life. A ship's company, consisting of two hundred 
and seventy-six souls, learned it fully in the midst of the 
Mediterranean one night about eighteen hundred years 
ago. After thirteen days of continuous tossing, without 
observations, in a disabled ship, on the fourteenth about 
midnight the seamen deemed that they drew near to some 
country. The symptom, detected only by experienced 
ears, was probably the distant roar of breakers on a 
rocky shore. By repeated soundings they soon satisfied 
themselves that their fears were too well founded. The 
sea was breaking upon rocks, and their unmanageable 
bark was drifting before the wi.nd right upon the shore. 
If they could see the land, although they could not now 
save the ship, they might select the spot that she should 
dash upon, and select it so as to save their own lives. Then 
and there, accordingly, with life and death hanging on 
the chances of their cables holding out the night, " They 
cast four anchors out of the stern, and wislied for the 
day." That was wishing ! Those men looked that night, 
as if by looking they would draw the dawning from the 
East before its time. 

To them that look for Him thus, will he come ; and 
his coming will be like the morning. 



THE KINGDOM IN WORD, ETC. 285 



XIX. 



THE KINGDOM IN WORD, AND THE KINGDOM 
IN POWER. 

*' For tlie kingdom of God is not in word, but in power." — 1 Cob. iv. 20. 

These words were written in connection with a particular 
question about discipline, which arose in the Church of 
Corinth ; but they teach a doctrine for all places and all 
times. This method prevails throughout the Scriptures. 
The seeds of universal truth grow on the actual incidents 
of human history. Such a union of the concrete and the 
abstract is best both for the understanding and the 
memory. As seed, attached at first to an individual 
plant and afterwards set free, is carried on the currents 
of air or ocean to germinate in every land ; those apos- 
tolic utterances which, in their origin, adhered to persons 
and places, were cast loose upon the tide of time, that 
they might grow into fruits of righteousness wherever 
and whenever they should fall upon a kindly soil. 
Accordingly, we violate no law in proceeding at once to 
explain and apply the doctrine which the text contains, 
without taking further notice of the circumstances from 
which it sprung. Such a word as this you may sever 
from the context as freely and as safely as you sever a 
ripened seed from the withered stalk that bore it. " The 
kingdom of God is not in word, but in power ; " that 



286 THE KINGDOM IN WORD, 

truth is the same to us, whatever dispute among the Corin- 
thian converts may have given Paul occasion to record it. 
In the New Testament many intimations are made 
regarding the kingdom of God, or the kingdom of heaven. 
As to the manner of its advance, it " cometh not with 
observation;" as to its site, it is within the hearts of its 
subjects ; as to its substance, it is "not meat and drink, 
but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost;" 
as to its progress from small beginnings to ultimate 
greatness, it is like a mustard seed sown in the ground, 
or leaven hid in the meal. No wonder that the Scriptures 
have much to say about the kingdom ; Christ is its King, 
Christians its subjects, and the Bible its law; earth is its 
battle-field, and heaven its home of rest. 

Consider — 

I. Negatively, and chiefly with a view to doctrinal 
exposition. What is the distinction between the kingdom 
in word, and the kingdom in power ? 

II. Positively, and chiefly with a view to practical 
application, What is the kingdom in power ? 

I. What is the distinction between the kingdom in 
word, and the kingdom in power? 

Generall}^, in regard to this subject, three conditions, 
are possible : True religion, false rehgion, and no religion ; 
and three corresponding classes actually exist in the 
world. The truth, accordingly, must be distinguished from 
two species of antagonists : Idolatry, and Worldliness. 
In idolatry there is power, but it is not the kingdom of 



AND THE KINGDOM IN POWER. 287 

God ; in worldliness the name of the kingdom is admitted, 
but its power is denied. Briefly, the one is power with- 
out the kingdom, the other is the kingdom without the 
power. 

Those of human kind who do not submit to the Lord 
and his Anointed, branch off into two streams. One 
division adopts a falsehood, and intrusts it with real 
power ; the other division makes a profession of the 
truth, but a profession only. Those plainly say, " We 
will not have this man to reign over us;" these salute 
him king with their lips, but obey another in their lives. 
Such are the two constituent streams of the world's great 
flood ; where there is power in religion, Christ is not 
confessed; where Christ is confessed, there is not power 
in religion. 

In contrast with either form of error, the church of 
the living God is distinguished by the union of truth and 
power. Christians proclaim the right King, and render 
to him a real obedience. False appearances abound. A 
word-kingdom destitute of power, overspreads the land, 
and deceives the people. True Christians are much 
wanted in these days. The world needs them; the Lord 
needs them. 

Our lot has fallen on an age that tends strongly to 
the material. The spiritual does not occupy a large place 
in the nineteenth century; neither the human, nor the 
divine. The mass of mankind gravitate towards matter. 
It is this that has enabled the Romish Church to obtain 
a species of revival : it is this that has enabled Romanizers 
in England to make so much head. The advance is due 



288 THE KINGDOM IN WORD, 

not to the aggresso/s inherent power, but to the feeble- 
ness of the defence. The age, engrossed with matter, 
did not supply enough of true spiritual food, and the 
appetite, unsatisfied, fastened greedily on falsehood. In 
animated nature there is an appetite for both food and 
drink : food alone will not satisfy. The creatures must 
have drink ; and if you do not supply them with clean 
water, they will take foul. In like manner there is in 
human nature a craving for both the material and the 
spiritual. When in the spiritual department there is a 
lack of healthful provision, men quench their thirst from 
poisonous streams. Many of those who venture to sip a 
little superstition, diluted and toned down to British 
taste by pretentious Scotch or English apostolics, are 
caught and carried over ere they are weU aware into the 
rank idolatry of Eome; as many, through an analogous 
bodily appetite, become in rapid succession tasters, tipplers, 
drunkards. 

The fashion has been to admit without dispute a form 
of sound words, allowing them a place in our creed, but 
not a power in our lives. Like bladders full of air, these 
hereditary professions occupy all the space, and are easily 
carried. To a great extent the kingdom of God has been 
owned, but the word which owns it is an empty word. 
Men wiU not bear the burden of a real kingdom — will not 
submit to the authority of a real king. The people of 
this country, and more especially those who, through 
birth, or wealth, or political opportunity, occupy its 
highest places, truly desire to be accounted Christians, 
and yet few are willing to be servants of Chiist. They 



AND THE KINGDOM IN POWER. 289 

hold the truth, but the truth is not permitted to hold 
them. They remain their own masters, and do not 
abandon themselves to the will of a superior. They con- 
sent to bear and wear true religion as the seemliest moral 
costume that has ever predominated in any country, or 
any age; but, in point of fact, they do not permit true 
religion to grasp their hearts, and guide their lives, and 
carr}^ them whithersoever it will. 

Hence, a characteristic of our Protestant country has 
been, that while in its high places the kingdom of God 
is not disowned, it is kept there as a poor relative, with- 
out consideration or influence. So good is her title, and 
so high her birth, that our character would suffer if she 
were cast out; therefore her presence is endured, and her 
expenses paid. But she is expected not to interfere in 
the management of the house, and to keep out of the 
way when her presence would be disagreeable to the 
company. Hence the opinion which Papists sincerely 
entertain, and the reproach which they continually cast 
on Protestants, that their religion is the nearest possible 
approach to infidelity. Those who allow falsehood to 
wield the real power of their life, are acute enough to 
perceive that we do not so surrender ourselves to the 
truth which we profess. 

In the long run, and in the nature of things, material- 
ism must succumb. Matter yields to spirit, whether the 
spirit of truth, or the .spirit of falsehood. Ideas are more 
powerful than armies. If spiritual truth is not permitted 
to animate and control our age and nation, we must lay 
our account with a slavery to spiritual error. A living 



290 THE KINGDOM IN WORD, 

superstition gradually overcomes, and ultimately destroys 
a lifeless form of sound words, however stately, as ivy 
first covers, and then casts down the withered stump of 
the most majestic oak; but the truth in power withstands 
and throws back all the assaults of falsehood, as the great 
and growthful tree keeps down, or kills off the parasite 
that tried to climb its stem. Our conflict is not with 
flesh and blood ; it is with " spiritual wickedness in high 
places." On that battle-field, and against that adversary, 
our mechanical superiority is not available : we shall lose 
the day unless we can oppose to spiritual falsehood spiritual 
truth. 

11. What is the kingdom in power? 

1. The instrument of this power is revealed Truth. 
Although the word may be present without power, where- 
ever the power is put forth, it employs the word as its 
instrument : although the letter is sometimes dead, it 
is by that letter, when it lives, that all the real work is 
done. The Scriptures, in relation to the kingdom of 
God, constitute the lade which contains and conveys the 
water. That channel does not put forth the power which 
propels the machinery ; but, without it, the machinery 
could not be propelled. In this Protestant land, many 
men and women, old and young, are like water wheels 
standing still, with well - cut dry channels abutting on 
the buckets. The channels are useless, and yet not use- 
less. They cannot act instead of water ; but they are 
precious to hold and convey the water when it comes. 
When the Spirit is poured out like floods upon the dry 



AND THE KINGDOM IN POWER. 29] 

ground, the activity and fruitfulness of the chnrch 
in this country will be very great, because of the scrip- 
tural education which prevails. Let not the diggers 
of these channels weary of the work, or intermit the 
longing look to heaven for the shower which will make 
the work effectual : pains and prayers are our part, and 
a " faithful Creator '' is ready to perform his own. 

2. The essence of the power is Christ. Christ crucified 
is " the power of God" (1 Cor. i. 24). Here is the fountain- 
head of all the force, which, through the preaching of the 
truth, can be brought to bear upon the hearts and lives of 
men. The word and ordinances stand ready to convey the 
power, but the redemption that is in Christ is the power 
which must be led to men's hearts, and let on. If this 
do not move them, they will never be moved. Unless 
the love of Christ constrain a man to yield himself unto 
God, he will, without restraint, give himself over to work 
all iniquity with greediness. 

This power moves man, not God. Those who deny 
or dislike the atonement, cannot see, or will not observe 
this plain distinction. The doctrine of substitution, they 
say, represents God as a monarch destitute of mercy, 
refusing pardon to the sinful, until the blood of the inno- 
cent has appeased his wrath. They think that in the 
evangelical system, the blood of Christ is represented as 
the power that moves God to forgive sin. There could 
not be a greater mistake. By turning the truth upside 
down they have turned it into a lie. The atonement 
offered by Christ is not the cause, but the effect of God s 
mercy. God is love ; and the gift of his Son is the 



292 THE KINGDOM IN WORD, 

greatest out -flow from that fountain-head. Infinitely, 
eternally, unchangeably merciful, the one living and true 
God would have been although no substitute had suffered, 
and no sinner been redeemed. Mercy provided the sacri- 
fice, in order that divine righteousness might be honoured, 
and the sinful forgiven. 

Thus the atonement constitutes the power, by opening 
a way through which the love of a just God may reach 
the unjust. There is no winning power in the terror of 
the Lord. That end of the magnet repels ; and yet an 
attractive virtue lies in the magnet. In the gospel of his 
Son the just God turns his forgiving love towards sinful 
men. Those who are caught by the unseen current are 
drawn near and held fast. All the principalities and 
powers of heaven and earth could not separate them 
" from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our 
Lord.'' You might as soon break the cord that holds a 
planet in its path, as that which keeps saved men hanging 
upon God their Saviour. 

3. The application of the power is effected by the 
ministry of the Spirit. Before his own ascension, our 
Lord promised the Spirit, and explained the nature of 
his work ; " He shall glorify me : for he shall take of 
mine, and shall shew it unto you." At the day of Pente- 
cost the promise was conspicuously fulfilled. Then the 
kingdom came in power to a multitude who had previously 
known it in word only. From that day to this, with a 
ministry sometimes silent and invisible as the dew, and 
sometimes terrible as a tempest, the same Spirit has 
been working in the world. When the enemy comes in 



AND THE KINGDOM IN POWER. 293 

like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord lifts up a standard 
against him. Thus Christ's kingdom is maintained until 
he come again. 

4. The effects of this power are great and various. 

(1.) It Subdues. At the set time the boldest rebel 
must bow before it. It seizes Saul on his way to 
Damascus, and in a moment lays him prostrate on the 
earth. It makes him blind, and again gives him light. 
It strips him of his own righteousness, and forthwith 
clothes him in another. The soldier is compelled to 
change his side, and without even putting off his armour 
marches under another Captain to fight another foe. The 
conquest, as might have been expected, is more complete 
than any which earthly powers can achieve. Those who 
can look only on the outward appearance must be con- 
tent with bodily service ; but it is the peculiar attribute 
of this kingdom to bring into captivity every thought to 
the obedience of Christ (2 Cor. x. 5). The whole man is 
reckoned a fortress in revolt, and the multitude of his 
thoughts the teeming population : by a resistless onset 
the king takes possession of the place, and all the defen- 
ders faU into his hands. Thoughts are arrested as well as 
actions : the will is conquered, and the life accordingly 
turned at its source. Other monarchs rule men's actions ; 
Christ is King of thoughts. 

(2.) It Comforts. The child Jesus is set both for the 
fall and the rising again of all his own (Luke ii. 34). It 
was a true instinct that stirred in believing men when 
they said in a time of trouble, " Come, and let us return 
unto the Lord ; for he hath torn, and he will heal us ; 



294 THE KINGDOM IN WORD, 

he hath smitten, and he will bind ns up " (Hosea vi. 1). 
When a man has been taught by the Spirit to count his 
own righteousness filthy rags, he soon hears a still small 
voice saying, " Take away the filthy garments from him, 
I will clothe thee with change of raiment " (Zech. iii. 4). 
When the law of God in the conscience has quenched the 
light of nature s confidence, blessed hope, kindled by a 
spark from heaven, soon begins to struggle, like smoking 
flax, in the desolated breast. It is a characteristic grace 
of the King that he will not quench it : he will cherish 
it till it burst into a flame. It is a wonderful display of 
divine power in the cross of Christ that it can make a 
sinner sing when the judgment-seat is near, without hid- 
ing either his own unworthiness or the righteousness of 
God. It is as much the peculiar prerogative of royalty 
to make peace, as to declare war. " Peace I leave with 
you, my peace I give unto 3'ou ; not as the world giveth, 
give I unto you." These are kingly words ; only One 
has the right to use them. 

(3.) It levies Tribute. This is the sure mark of a real 
kingdom. In the days of James YI. the actual monarch 
of Britain claimed to be also king of France. " King of 
Great Britain, France, and Ireland " was his title. The 
iron and miry clay are mingled there. In France his 
kingdom consisted in word only ; in Britain and Ireland 
it came in power. Here tribute flowed into the royal 
treasury from every portion of the country, and from all 
classes of the people ; there not a penny was paid. 
Christ's kingdom, wherever it is real, puts forth the tax- 
ing power. Tribute bearing the image and superscription 



AND THE KINGDOM IN POWER. 295 

of earthly kings flows into its treasury to maintain its 
machinery and extend its bounds ; but the self of the 
subject is the coin in which the King best likes the tribute 
to be paid. When a question regarding the royal revenue 
comes up for solution, the demand is not, Show me a 
penny, but, Show me a renewed man. Whose image 
and superscription hath he ? God's, for into that blessed 
likeness he has been restored in the regeneration. Eender, 
therefore, unto God the things that are God's : yield 
yourselves as instruments of righteousness, whereby the 
operations of the kingdom may be carried on : ye are 
not your own : he who bought you claims not only 
yours, but also you. 

With a view to a suitable lesson vdth personal applica- 
tion at the close, I now request you to examine impar- 
tially whether the kingdom of God within yourselves is 
a word merely, or a supreme power. It is certain that 
our spirits are subject to a controlling power as well as 
our bodies. We are all under authority. A kingdom in 
word cannot cast out the strong man who holds hereditary 
sway in the sinful. The substance of the kingdom of 
darkness is more powerful than the shadow of the king-- 
dom of light. If we have not been made free by yielding, 
to the kingly power of Christ, we are still in bondag*e to» 
the god of this world. The question is not, Which spisii^ 
of the legion rules you ? Covetousness, pride, envy, and^a. 
long list of kindred lusts, are ranged on one side, while 
Christ stands alone on the other. If any of these stiE 
maintain a controlling power in your heart, the allegiance- 



296 THE KINGDOM IN WORD, 

professed with the* lip to another King will avail you 

nothincr. 

o 

The body of a man cannot maintain an independent 
place in the material world ; it must lie with all its 
weight on something greater than itself The earth 
grasps us by the law of gravity, and holds us helplessly 
on its surface. Constant and complete is the control 
which this kingdom of nature exercises over us. Al- 
though the earth on which we stand were dissolved, and 
reduced to nothing, a man could not physically be a world 
for himself Other bodies in space would attract him 
according to their nearness and their bulk. Although he 
were left at first in equilibrium on the border line between 
two worlds, one would soon obtain preponderance. To- 
wards it he would fall, and on it he would lie, unless and 
until a greater force should remove him. 

The spirit of man is subject as much as the body, al- 
though its subjection is not a seen thing. The human 
soul is not, and cannot be, a god unto itself : by necessity 
of nature it must worship another : around some spiritual 
centre it must revolve. It may be that some are, in 
point of fact, for a time hovering on the confines of two 
opposite worlds. The kingdom of light may have begun 
to grasp, while the kingdom of darkness has not yet let 
go the man. Two real powers — the power of God and 
the power of evil — are contending for possession. The 
captive of the one or of the other must a human spirit be. 
There is such a thing as a borderer halting between these 
two kingdoms ; but he does not halt always — he does not 
halt long there. While he stands quivering in the 



AND THE KINGDOM IN POWER. 297 

balance, sensible that redeeming love is drawing, but re- 
fusing to throw himself absolutely over into its power, the 
world holds him yet by a bond unbroken, and will suck 
back into its bosom all its own. 

What is your position, brother ? It is not enough to 
say that you are not wallowing in the mire of manifold 
lusts ; you may be far removed from the vicious, and yet 
be as completely subject to the same spiritual power. The 
men who soar in a balloon among the clouds are as per- 
fectly controlled by the earth's attraction as the men who 
heavily trudge on foot along the miry road below ; soon, 
and perhaps suddenly, the lofty will be on a level with 
the low. Such, and no greater, is the difference between 
the more and the less reputable of those who live without 
God in the world. The movement upward from the earth, 
which is made by aid of earth's own powers and laws, 
will neither go far nor last long : if you are not caught 
and carried off by a power in heaven, the earth will soon 
have you on its bosom again. As long as a soul remains 
in the power of its old centre, a few degrees more or less 
of elevation in the standard of conventional morality will 
not decisively affect the final issue. A word will not 
avail. The kingdom that does not exert supreme con- 
trolling power is not a kingdom. In whose power does 
the soul actually lie ? On that hinge turns all our time 
— all our eternity. 

If the sun, while its grasp of the earth by gravity re- 
mained the same, were otherwise so changed that aU its 
rays should be darts of death, the only hope for our world 
would be to escape from the sway of the destroyer. A 



298 THE KINGDOM IN WORD. 

method of deliverance can be at least conceived easily. 
Let the suffering planet forsake its orbit, and flee toward 
some other of the suns that people space ; it would then 
revolve round another centre, and bask in another light. 
The passage of a human spirit from the power of Satan 
into the kingdom of God is a real event, as great and as 
decisive as the supposed transference of a peopled planet 
to the sphere of another sun. If there should not be in 
all cases the power of precisely observing and recordiug 
the moment when the border line between death and life 
is crossed, there ought at least to be a well-defined and 
clearly seen distinction between hving under the power of 
darkness and a translation into the kingdom of God's dear 
Son. 

On the Sabbath, when you leave your labour behind, 
and worsliip with your fellows in the house of prayer, or 
in the silence of night within your own dwelling, when 
you kneel alone to pray, which kingdom retains the con- 
trol of your heart? Does the love of Christ hold you, as 
the sun holds this planet in its power ? If the new king- 
dom has not gotten the command, the old kingdom has 
not lost it. A kingdom in word cannot wreneh you from 
the gTasp of this world's god. The word of the kingdom 
may tingle in your ears every Sabbath for a lifetime, and 
you, nevertheless, lie in the wicked one. There is only 
one way of deliverance, and that is by a simple and un- 
reserved personal surrender to the power of Christ's king- 
dom — to Christ its King. 

Whether do you keep Christ in yom- power or lie in 
his ? Strange question, you will say ; how could we keep 



AND THE KINGDOM IN POWER. 299 

Christ in our power although we would ? True, you can- 
not ascend into heaven and drag Messiah from his throne; 
but those who are determined to have Christ at their dis- 
posal take not the power but the word, and make it lie 
where it will disturb them least. Some persecutors, 
when the victim is beyond their reach, dress and execute 
his effigy. Thus some who are called Christians treat 
Christ. They keep a lifeless image which bears his name, 
leaving it outside the door while they entertain company 
within, and subjecting it to a thousand indignities. The 
name and the garb they will endure, but not the life or 
power. In order to carry out a certain political system, 
the British Government maintained a personage at Delhi 
in royal state, with royal titles ; but they crushed their 
own creature as soon as he tried to be a real king. It is 
thus that the same persons who bow the knee and cry, 
Hosanna ! before the Christian religion, crucify Christ 
because he claims to be a King. The struggle of rebellion 
is painful ; but simple, trustful, loyal obedience is sweet. 
Those who have surrendered without reserve to the Re- 
deemer's claim of sovereignty, bear witness willingly that 
ills yoke is easy and his burden light. 



300 GODLY SORROW, AND ITS PRECIOUS FRUIT. 

XX. 

GODLY SORROW, AND ITS PRECIOUS FRUIT. 

"For godly sorrow worketh. repentance to salvation, not to Le repented of." — 

2 Cor. vii. 10, 

Here godly sorrow and repentance stand to each other 
in the relation of cause and effect. We shall consider 
them in their order, following each into its subordinate 
branches and practical results : — 

I. The godly sorrow which works repentance. 
II. The repentance which godly sorrow works. 

I. Godly sorrow ; Its nature, and its origin. 

1. The nature of godly sorrow. As long as my 
audience consists of human beings in the body, it is not 
necessary to explain what is meant by sorrow. Every 
one knows, but none can tell, what it is. The heart 
knoweth its own bitterness. Men are born to trouble at 
first, and exercised in it all their days. There is a cry 
at the beginning of life, and a groan at its close. 

Sorrow, the generic, is known to all ; the specific, godly 
sorrow, needs definition and description. We habitually 
and universally assume that all understand what is meant 
by a flower : we never define it. The genus is so com- 
mon, and so widely spread over the earth, that every 
human being is familiar with its name and nature. But 



GODLY SOKROW, AND ITS PRECIOUS FRUIT. 301 

there are some species of flowers "which few have ever 
seen, and which the more experienced, accordingly, de- 
scribe to the multitude. In order to convey an accu- 
rate conception of a rare exotic, it is usual to compare 
and contrast it with some plant that is common and indi- 
genous. The new species is best understood when we 
have learned wherein it is like, and wherein it is unlike 
one that is found on every wayside. 

It is thus that we must deal with godly sorrow, a pre- 
cious seed brought- from heaven to human hearts, and 
struggling through an unkindly soil. In the immediate 
context it is directly contrasted with a commoner kind, 
called " the sorrow of the world.'' Although affliction 
Cometh not forth of the dust, neither doth trouble spring 
out of the ground (Job v. 6) ; yet sorrows do spring in 
the lot of man, a braird as thick and close and constant 
as the grass. The low-growing species, godly sorrow, 
may be found here and there on the plain, rarer and 
sweeter than violets among the herbage of summer. 

The sorrow of the world, though it seem a thick homo- 
geneous covering over all human life, is yet made up of 
as many different kinds as that carpet of green which 
covers the earth. Here, it is chiefly the pain of a diseased 
body ; and there, the eating canker of a discontented 
mind. At one time the loss of property, at another the loss 
of friends, is the more immediate cause of grief. Some are 
distressed because they cannot get this world's good, and 
others because they must soon part with that which they 
have gotten. These and all other kinds of grief which 
have respect only to the present life, are slumped together, 



802 GODLY SORROW, AND ITS PRECIOUS FRUIT. 

and denominated "the sorrow of the world/' although 
they consist of kinds various and numerous as the herbs 
that clothe the ground. Alone, on the other side, and in 
contrast with them all, stands that one peculiar species, 
" sorrow towards God."' It is like the rest, inasmuch as 
it is sorrow : it is unlike the rest, inasmuch as it springs, 
not out of the sufferer's connection with the earth and 
time, but out of his connection with God and eternity. 

The expression clearly intimates that the attitude of 
the soul must be changed ere it can be sensible of this 
sorrow. Away from the world, with its hopes and fears, 
the man must turn, and open his inmost being towards 
God. Let the Father of our spirits come into immediate 
communion with the spirit which he has made. The 
creature, absorbed by the presence of its Maker, becomes 
in a manner unconscious of temporal things. He has 
been lifted up, in spirit, from the earth, so that for the 
time its attractions and repulsions do not sensibly affect 
him. He is alone with God ; and God is near. Now, 
what will the sensation be in that human heart ? It is 
not love, pure and full, as of angels and spirits of men 
made perfect ; it is not despairing hate like that of devils ; 
it is, — if the communion which has begun be with the 
Father, through the Son, by the ministry of the Holy 
Spirit, — it is sorrow ; but it is a sorrow diverse from 
aU the sorrows of the world. It is a new thing. It is 
an affection which the carnal mind never knew. It is in 
no sense or measure dependent on the good things of this 
world. The want of them wiU not produce it ; the pos- 
session of them wiU not take it away. 



GODLY SORROW, AND ITS PRECIOUS FRUIT. 303 

"When the human spirit has been led aside into the 
Father's presence, — when a conference is held on the 
border between the tenant of time and eternity's Almighty 
Lord, old things that were wont to control the emotions 
are left behind, and new things from the other side come 
in to mould with supreme authority the affections and the 
will. Towards God, — when the soul is turned in that 
direction, and the Father's countenance, like the sun in 
his strength, shines directly in, — towards God there would 
be no sorrow, if there were no sin. Sometimes in our 
latitudes vapours rising from the ground, and hanging in 
the atmosphere, change the white brightness of the sun 
into a jaundiced yellow or a fiery red. A shade that 
seems to take the mirth out of both man and beast then 
lies upon the world. Thus passions, issuing Hke mist 
from the soul itself, darken the face of God, hiding his 
tenderness, and permitting only anger to glance through. 

It depends on the work of the Spirit in the man whe- 
ther the result of that disturbance shall be dislike of God's 
holiness, or sorrow for his own sin. One of these it must 
be. When witli a broken, teachable heart you turn in 
that direction, you will attribute the dimness to its true 
cause. You find fault, not with God because there is a 
frown on his countenance, but with yourself, because your 
sins have hid his face. When the sun is half-hidden, and 
the rays that do penetrate are of a livid, lurid hue, we 
know well, we know all that there is nothing the matter 
with the sun — that the sole reason of the dimness and 
dread is the vapour that springs from the earth, and 
hovers near its surface. If we were as knowing and as 



S04j godly sorrow, and its precious fruit. 

true in spiritual as we are in natural affairs, we would 
understand, and confess, and feel, that when a human 
heart is turned toward God its own sin is the only im- 
pediment to peace. Our concern, our dislike, our revenge 
would be directed, not against the Holy One who refuses 
to smile upon the impure, but a,gainst our own impurities, 
which bar the approaches of his love. The resulting 
emotion would be, not impotent enmity upward, but sor- 
row turned in. 

We approach here the very hinge of the difference 
between the carnal and the spiritual mind. The one is 
enmity against God for his righteousness ; the other, sor- 
row for its own sin. Two persons, imbued respectively 
with these opposite spirits, may both be painfully sensible 
of an obstruction preventing peaceful communion between 
themselves and God : the one is sorry that the Judge will 
not come down to his standard ; the other, that his own 
attainments have not been brought up to the standard of 
the Judge. The true wish of the one man's heart is, that 
there were less of holiness in God ; the true wish of the 
other man's heart is, that there were more in himself. 
The two griefs and the two desires lie as far apart from 
each other as light and darkness, — as life and death. 

2. We shall be better able to understand what sorrow 
towards God is, if we proceed now to examine more ex- 
actly how it is produced. Its immediate cause will throw 
light upon its specific character. 

A cognate text in Rom. ii. 4 wiU help us here. These 
two allied but distinct intimations may be placed in 
parallel lines, and treated like an equation ; thus : — 



GODLY SORROW, AND ITS PRECIOUS FRUIT. 305 

" The goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance." 

" Godly sorrow worketh repentance." 

We learn, as the result of the comparison, that the 
goodness of God leads to repentance by the way of godly 
soiTOW. The series of cause and effect runs thus : good- 
ness of God ; godly sorrow ; repentance. The same con- 
clusion is brought out witli much fuller illustration in a 
preceding section of the same epistle. Perhaps there is 
no other portion of Scripture in which the goodness of 
God is more articulately pronounced, or more vividly dis- 
played. " Come out from among them, and be ye sepa- 
rate, and touch not the unclean thing ; and I will receive 
you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my 
sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty" (vi. 17, 
18). In the next verse (vii. 1) we learn what effects are 
expected to spring from such an outpouring of paternal 
tenderness : " Having, therefore, these promises, dearly 
beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the 
flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God." 
The undeserved and unexpected display of fatherly kind- 
ness penetrates like sunlight into the dark chambers of 
an alienated heart. That heart, thereupon, startles and 
stands aghast at its own pollutions. It is amazed at its 
own ingratitude, now discovered. Its instant, instinctive, 
vehement cry is, " Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthi- 
ness." This is a most instructive example, in the moral 
department, of effect following cause. The sorrow for 
sin was not felt until God's goodness aroused it ; and that 
sorrow once aroused, instantly manifests true repentance, 
in an eager effort to put sin away. 



806 GODLY SORROW, AND ITS PRECIOUS FRUIT. 

Nothing will make us turn until we be grieved for our 
sins ; and nothing mil make us grieve for our sins but 
the goodness of God. Do not mistake ; a fear of hell is 
not sorrow for sin : it may be nothing more than a re- 
gret that God is holy. Dread of punishment may in- 
deed be employed to produce the commotion in which a 
purer affection begins, but in itself it neither pleases God 
nor purifies man. As an instrument wherewith the peace 
of spiritual death may be disturbed, the Lord employs it, 
and, therefore, we should neither despise nor discard it ; 
but it lies very low, and cannot carry us far in an upward 
movement. It is worthless unless it quickly merge in 
the higher, and truer, and purer, affection — sorrow for sin. 
When a man, touched by God's goodness, takes God's 
side with his whole heart, as against himself in the mat- 
ter of his own guilt, — this is the turning point. 

I am aware that some will acquiesce in this exposition 
as far as it goes, and complain that precisely at the place 
where it stops their difficulty lies. They know that to 
themselves belongs sin, and to God righteousness. They 
know that they ought to be grieved for the wickedness of 
their own hearts, but in point of fact they are not grieved. 
They would like to possess this godly sorrow, but they 
do not possess it. They cannot attain it. What shall 
be done for these ? How shall you comfort them ? 

I shall not try to comfort them. Their complaint 
about the want of godly sorrow, and their expressed de- 
sire to attain it, is in most cases, I suspect, rank self- 
deceiving. They have admitted into their understandings 
the knowledge that this gr?<ie of the Spirit is necessary; 



GODLY SORROW, AND ITS PRECIOUS FRUIT. 807 

but this grace of the Spirit their hearts do not desire ; 
for if they desired it, they would obtain it. The promise 
is absolute, Ask, and ye shall receive. The Promiser is 
true ; the lie will be found on the other side. 

Look to the expression ; it is not merely the generic 
sorrow ; it is the specific " sorrow toward God.'' They 
who do not turn in that direction cannot possibly expe- 
rience that sorrow. It is like Nelson's bold expedient at 
Copenhagen, when holding the telescope to his blind eye, 
he declared he did not see the signal for retreat, and 
pressed forward to the battle. If you keep the seeing 
eye of your soul open upon the world, and turn a blind 
eye towards God, whatever emotions may be kindled by 
the aspect of temporal things, towards God there will be 
neither grief nor joy. It is mere hypocrisy to complain 
that you are not tenderly affected by the sight of certain 
objects, if on these objects you seldom look, and never 
gaze. 

Suppose I were shut up within a round tower, whose 
massive wall had in some time of trouble been pierced 
here and there for musketry; suppose, further, that, by 
choice or necessity, I am whirled rapidly and incessantly 
round its inner circumference, will I appreciate the beau- 
ties of the suiTOunding landscape, or recognise the features 
of the men who labour in the field below? I will not. 
Why? Are there not openings in the wall which I pass 
at every circuit ? Yes ; but the eye, set for objects near, 
has not time to adjust itself to objects at a distance until 
it has passed the openings ; and so the result is the same 
as if it were a dead wall all round. Behold the circle of 



808 GODLY SORROW, AND ITS PRECIOUS FRUIT. 

human life ! of the earth earthy it is, almost throughout 
its whole circumference. A dead wall very near and very 
thick obstructs the view. Here and there, on a Sabbath 
or other season of seriousness, a slit is left open in its 
side. Heaven might be seen through these ; but, alas, the 
eye which is habitually set for the earthly cannot, during 
such momentary glimpses, adjust itself to higher things, 
Unless you pause and look steadfastly, you will see neither 
clouds nor sunshine through these openings on the distant 
sky. So long has the soul looked upon the world, and 
so firmly is the world's picture fixed in its eye, that when 
it is turned for a moment heavenward, it feels only a 
quiver of inarticulate light, and retains no distinct im- 
pression of the things that are unseen and eternal. 

Those who devote all their time and energy to the 
afiairs of this life, and complain that they cannot attain 
a vivid sense of sin, are deceiving themselves. Be as 
diligent in this business as in others, and you will succeed 
as well. If you bestow only languid, superficial, momen- 
tary thoughts upon your greatest interests, you have no 
right to expect that they will prosper. 

Moreover, when you do turn your mind, and turn in- 
tently, toward God, you must open on his goodness. His 
wrath, when you gaze on it, may make you afraid of 
punishment, but has no power to make you sorry for sin. 
So hard is a heart long accustomed to evil, that nothing 
can melt it but goodness ; and no goodness but God's ; 
and no goodness of his but the greatest. Thanks be to 
God for his unspeakable gift. " Looking unto Jesus" is the 
grand specific for producing godly sorrow in a human 



GODLY SOEROW, AND ITS PRECIOUS FRUIT. 809 

heart. It was a hard heart that quivered under the 
beams of his loving eye on the threshold of Pilate's 
judgment hall. When Jesus looked on Peter, Peter went 
out and wept. Emmanuel's love has lost none of its 
melting power ; the hardest hearts laid fairly open to it, 
must ere long flow down. God's goodness, embodied in 
Christ crucified, becomes, under the ministry of the Spirit, 
the cause of godly sorrow in believing men. " Consider 
Him;" it is by meditating much on the stupendous cure 
which divine mercy has provided that you ^vill learn to 
estimate aright the depth of the disease. Sweet sense of 
pardon has, as its other side, bitter grief for sin. Mere 
sweetness soon palls upon the taste : acids sweetened 
give more lively and more lasting pleasure. To a thirsty 
soul cold water conveys a measure of delight which is not 
inherent in its own nature. Sinners forgiven must relish 
a holy heaven, in a manner and measure which unfallen 
angels do not know. "Thou hast washed us from our 
sins in thy blood'' gives zest to the songs of heaven. 
Such and so great a gladness they could not have enjoyed 
unless they had tasted grief 

II. The repentance which godly sorrow produces. It 
is a change of mind which imparts a new direction to 
the whole life, as the turning of the helm changes the 
course of the ship. God's goodness, flashing in upon the 
heart, made it ashamed of its own rebellion ; this shame, 
so produced, turns the whole being round ; the life so 
turned flows amain in the channel of obedience. 

Two things are said in the text about this turning : 



310 GODLY SORROW, AND ITS PRECIOUS FRUIT. 

1 , Ifc is unto salvation ; and 2, It is not to be repented 

of- 

1. It is " repentance -unto salvation/' The man's former 

course led to perdition ; it has been reversed, and there- 
fore now leads to life. 

Conversion is a common word in our language, and in 
our day. It means a turning, — that radical, and total, 
and permanent revolution in human life, which, beginning 
with conviction of sin in the heart, issues in pardon and 
holiness. In time of war a feeble pioneer band is feeling 
its way forward in a hostile country. Their own belief, 
taken up at hazard in the absence of information, and 
confirmed by the cunning of hostile spies, is that the 
path which they follow will lead to safety. Suddenly, 
and almost too late, a faithful messenger meets them with 
the decisive report that the enemy in force is immediately 
in front, and that a few paces more will plunge them into 
the jaws of death. They halt, wheel round, and retrace 
their steps. They never swerve from the track, and never 
lie down to rest until they reach, and touch, and are ab- 
sorbed again into the mighty army of their king ; as a 
detached drop, trickling down a blade of grass, gently, 
safely disappears when it comes in contact with the 
stream. 

We are dealing here with matters on which our own 
life or death eternal depends ; it behoves us to under- 
stand clearly, and speak plainly. ALL men are at the first 
and by nature moving downward through sin to death, 
as rivers flow toward the sea ; unless we turn we shall 
die. In the words of our Chief Teacher : " Except a 



GfOI>LY SORROW, AND ITS PRECIOUS FRUIT. 311 

man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God/' 
As surely as the waters, once disengaged from the moun- 
tain, find their way to the sea, so surely do the tastes and 
habits of the fallen gravitate farther and farther out from 
God. It is only when that course is absolutely arrested 
and turned back that the wanderer enters the path of 
life. It is the turning round that becomes salvation. 
They who turn not are not saved : " turn ye, turn ye 
from your evil ways ; for why will ye die V 

2. It is a " repentance not to be repented of" The 
change is decisive and final. Your attitude is fixed, 
your portion chosen for life, — for ever. When in godly 
sorrow you have turned your face to Christ, and conse- 
quently your back on all that grieves him, you will 
never need to make another change ; you will never 
repent of that repentance. 

This seems so obvious that we are surprised to find it 
formally expressed. Perhaps the design is to suggest 
silently other choices which must be repented of. Many 
turns are made in life which demand another turning. 
That turning was "unto salvation;" there was no 
salvation in any other. They turned and lived ; this 
one is the last, although the pilgrim after making it 
should sojourn on earth a hundred years. There may 
be many crooks in the Christian's lot, but there will 
henceforth be no turning in his path till he reach his 
happy home. That youth who closed with Christ before 
his disease began, whose eyes are beaming with hope on 
the verge of the grave, whose feeble lips are framing 
themselves into a smile as the spirit is departing, does 



812 GODLY SOEROW, AND ITS PRECIOUS FRUIT. 

not then and there repent of his repentance. Falsehood 
is manifold ; truth is single. Idols are a multitude ; 
God is one. Each cistern that a thirsty soul turns to, is 
another that he must turn from, until he taste the 
fountain of living water. He who drinks the water that 
Christ gives him shall never thirst again. 

The saved, as he enters among the undefiled, washed 
like them in the blood of the Lamb, and takes his place 
unchallenged in the circle of those that stand round the 
throne, does not rue the choice he made, and the point it 
turned on, and the new path it opened, when, yet in his 
youth, melted by God's goodness, he sorrowed for sin and 
sought the Saviour, — when in the souls inmost thought, 
and the lip's bold confession, and the life's resolute course, 
in spite of indolence within and scorners without, he 
turned his back on a tempting world, and fully thence- 
forth followed the Lord. That turning was salvation, 
and he never needed to turn again. 

It is recorded of a man, that in the body on the earth 
he found no place of repentance, though he sought it 
carefully with tears. In heaven it will be equally 
impossible to find a place of repentance, with this 
difference that none will seek one there. Considering 
how many repentings are in human life, and how painful 
they are, it is a gladsome feature of the better land that 
it knows them not for ever. Even the last great turning 
of the saved, although a salutary, was a painful change. 
Birth pangs give Borrow, though they usher in life. To 
discover danger and rue the past is agony to a human 
soul. These experiences lead to safety, but they do 



GODLY SORROW, AND ITS PRECIOUS FRUIT. 313 

not constitute rest. In the rest that remaineth these 
turnings will no more be known. In the aggregate of 
human suffering on earth how large a portion consists of 
regrets! A correspondingly important element in the 
joy of the redeemed is that they will have none. Even 
in man's best estate here, the review of each day as it 
fades away into the past, supplies material of new re- 
pentings. But as one object very near you hides from 
view a thousand that lie behind, this grace of the Spirit 
— " repentance unto life " — lies so close and bulks so 
largely in the eyes of the risen saints when they look 
back toward the world, that it covers the manifold minor 
regrets which dotted all their history. The repentance 
which led unto salvation is the only repentance which the 
saved see in the memory of the past, and of that re- 
pentance they will never, never repent. Never in earth or 
in heaven will Christians repent of that turning which, 
whatever it tore them from, brought them to Christ. 
It is a pressing practical thing. How close it comes ! — 
how great it is ! To you, brother, is the word of this 
salvation sent. This day Christ, and in him pardon and 
eternal life, are offered free to you. Close with this 
offer without reserve, without delay. Come to Christ, 
letting go all that you cannot carry into his bosom. This 
choice, — this turning, in time or eternity, you will never 
rue. 



31 4 THE LAW AND THE CONSCIENCE 



XXL 

THE LAW AND THE CONSCIENCE :— THEIR 
QUAEREL MADE UP. 

"■ Can two walk together, except they be agreed %" — Amos iii. 3. 

One of those unanswered questions which sound forth 
from the Bible like the thunders of Sinai, and whose 
echoes grumble long in the hollow caverns of an unclean 
conscience. A question answered is Hke a hungry child 
that has gotten its food ; it is silenced and set aside ; but a 
question which you cannot answer keeps you on the rack. 
It haunts your memory in hours of solitude. It crosses 
the path of pleasure, and shakes its grim head like a spectre 
in your face, demanding what you cannot give — a re'ply. 

There must be a reason why questions are put in the 
Bible, and not answered there. It is intended that each 
learner should sit down, and, by the analogy of faith 
applied to his own experience, work out an answer for 
himself Some of the problems are easy, if we were 
willing to have them solved; others are difficult, even to 
anxious inquirers. May the Holy Spirit, who put this 
question in the text, lead us to the truth, which will 
supply an " answer in peace ! " 

The question arises out of a particular case in the 
experience of Israel ; but it is expressed in a general 
form, and contains a rule of universal application : '' Can 



THEIR QUARREL MADE UP. 315 

two walk together" — any two, at any time — "except 
they be agreed?" I wish to apply the question at 
present to two who have necessarily much intercourse on 
subjects of the weightiest moment — God's law and Brian's 
conscience. 

The first question is, How they fell out; and the 
second, How they fell in again. Sin is the cause of the 
quarrel ; and righteousness by faith is the way to peace. 

I. The disagreement. 
II. The reconciliation. 

I. The Disagreement. Notice separately and succes- 
sively the Fact and its Consequences. 

1. The Fact that there is an alienation. God's law is 
his manifested will for the government of his creatures. 
It is the reflection cast down on earth of his own holiness. 
It is holy, and just, and good ; it is perfect as its 
Author ; it knows of no compromise ; it cannot bend, 
by a hair's-breadth, to keep a whole world of human 
kind from sinking into everlasting perdition. Observe 
the steadfastness of God's laws, as applied to material 
things. The ocean is under law to God, and by that 
law it would engulf the whole human race, without 
swerving from its even course, if they were cast upon it 
without protection. This is God's law, and his laws 
are all sure; they are not "yea, yea, and nay, 
nay.^^ His moral law, ruling spirits, is as inexorable 
as his physical law, ruling matter. It knows of 
no yielding, no compunction. The ocean would 



816 THE LAW AND THE CONSCIENCE : 

submerge a million of men, and the next moment its 
waves would roll and play in the same regular suc- 
cession as before ; there would be no staggering of 
resolution, no change of purpose. He who made the 
sea may miraculously walk on its waves and stretch out 
his hand to the perishing ; but the sea's law is changeless 
and pitiless. If another million should be thrown upon 
the water, they would be swallowed up in the same way. 
Such also is God's law for moral beings ; it has no 
softness for indulged sins. Yourselves may have a 
partiality for them, and think it hard that wrath should 
come upon them to the uttermost ; but the law of God 
does not participate in that tenderness for favourite 
lusts. It meets you there like the ocean : " The soul 
that sinneth, it shall die.'' It never changes, and 
never repents. If you sin and perish, its waves 
roll over you unchanged, to meet the next comer with 
the same demand : " The soul that sinneth, it shall 
die." The law never saved a sinner ; if it did, it would 
be no longer a law. If it softened and yielded at any 
one point, it were absolutely annulled. If any sin or any 
sinner is allowed to pass, where is the justice of punishing 
any sin or any sinner ? To bend any commandment for the 
accommodation of a defaulter is to blot out the law. The 
law, by its very nature, can have no partialities and no 
compunctions. It never saves those who transgress ; and 
never weeps for those who perish. It is hard for a man 
with warm life in his body to sink beneath the waves, 
and struggle a while, and be choked, and die in the deep 
unseen ; yet though the case is pitiable, no one expects 



THEIR QUARREL MADE UP. 817 

tliat the sea will become pitiful, and shrink back, refusing 
to be the executioner. So God's other law knows no 
relenting ; transgressors are reckoning without their host 
when they expect to escape by its softness in that day. 

The conscience in man is that part of his wonderful 
frame that comes into closest contact with God's law — 
the part of the man that lies next the fiery law, and feels 
its burning. When first the conscience is informed and 
awakened, it discovers itself guilty, and the law angry. 
There is not peace between the two, and, by the consti- 
tution of both, they are neighbours. They touch at all 
points, as the air touches the earth or the sea ; neither 
the one nor the other can avoid the contact. There is 
need of peace in so close a union ; but there is not peace. 
The first exclamation of the awakened conscience, on the 
discovery of the law, is, " Hast thou found me, mine 
enemy ? '' " The commandment came, sin revived, and I 
died" (Rom. vii. 9). The conscience is pierced by the 
law, the sharp arrow of the Lord ; and the convicted feels 
himself a lost, a dead man. The law's enmity against a 
guilty moral being is intense and total ; it cannot other- 
wise be. The enmity of a guilty moral being against the 
holy law that condemns him is intense and total ; it can- 
not otherwise be. Where there is mutual hatred, distance 
may diminish its intensity ; but where the antagonists 
are forced into contact, the nearness exasperates the hate. 
Oh, who can measure, who can describe the disagreement 
between the guilty violator of God's law and that law 
which condemns him ? Who knoweth the power of the 
Judge's wrath, or of the culprit's enmity ? Who has ever 



318 THE LAW AND THE CONSCIENCE: 

confessed, even to himself, the degree of his hatred to 
God's law in all its length and breadth — that law which 
haunts him through life, dogs his steps in the dark valley, 
and confronts him in the judgment — that enemy which 
embitters all the pleasures of sin, which deepens the dark- 
ness of the grave, and quenches the hope for eternity ? It 
is a great quarrel that has broken out between a guilty 
conscience and a holy law. 

2. The Consequence of this disagreement between the 
two is, they cannot walk together. Let us see what this 
means in the case before us. Enmity tends to produce 
distance. The law, indeed, remains what it was, and 
where it was ; but the offending and fearing conscience 
seeks, and, in one sense, obtains a separation. The con- 
science cannot bear the burning contact of a condemning 
law, and forcibly pushes it away : " depart from me, 
for I desire not the knowledge of thy ways." The con- 
science with the law is like the wicked king with the 
true prophet (2 Chron. xviii. 7) : "I hate him ; for he 
never prophesied good unto me, but always evil.'' As 
when a little child, afloat in his tiny boat, angrily bids 
the dry land depart, and pushes it away ; lo ! it goes — 
it seems to go. The feeble effort of the child was suffi- 
cient to move himself away from the land ; but he is 
persuaded all the while that the land has removed from 
him. So, the conscience by instinct pushes against the 
law, and having pushed itself away into greater indiffer- 
ence, is glad of the comparative relief. 

Bub distance is disobedience. To walk with the law, 
is to live righteously ; not to walk with the law, is to 



THEIR QUARREL MADE UP. 819 

live in sin. "Where love is the fulfilling of the law, hate 
and distance must be the highest disobedience. The 
Judge looketh on the heart ; and whatever the outward 
conduct may be, the life of one who is thus at variance 
with the law is a life of sin. 

There are certain special features of the disagreement in 
this case that aggravate the breach and increase its effects. 

(1.) The party who has injured another hates that 
other most heartily, and cannot afford to forgive. The 
injurer must foment the quarrel ; it is his only source of 
relief The one who receives the injury does not feel the 
necessity of keeping distant ; but the one who inflicts it 
must fan the flame ; and if there be not real repentance 
and confession, he does fan the flame. The guilty con- 
science is the oflender, and in proportion to the sense 
of guilt is his exasperation against the law. It con- 
tinues increasing until the hard heart gives way, and flows 
down like water at the presence of the Lord. The wrong- 
doer is miserable when he whom he has injured is near. 

(2.) Another circumstance that makes companionship 
impossible is, when on one or both sides there is not only 
the memory of a past grudge, but also the purpose of a 
future injury. In considering how much the law ex- 
asperates a guilty conscience, we must take into account 
not only what it has said, but also what it will yet 
do. It will retain the record of all. It wiU appear as 
witness and accuser. You know that it will accuse you 
without mercy. It will not hide one transgression in 
order to save you. You know that the law is your 
enemy, and that it wiU be inexorable and unbending if 



820 THE LAW AND THE CONSCIENCE : 

the day of your extremity should come. This makes you 
hate the law with a perfect hatred. Besides knowing 
that you have injured it, you know that it will bring up 
all against you. While the law and you are in this rela- 
tion, you cannot love it. You put it away from you with 
all the strength and steadfastness of an instinctive aver- 
sion. You may all the while be speaking respectfully of 
the law, and even, in a form of words, saying or singing 
that you love it ; but it is only the trembling captive, 
flattering and fawning on the tyrant who has life and 
death in his power. If that captive were placed beyond 
the tyrant's reach, he would change his tone and defy his 
foe. As is the love of the helpless prisoner to the con- 
queror who shakes a naked sword above his head, such is 
the love of an unreconciled soul to the law that denounces 
Jehovah's wrath against all iniquity. To love either the 
law, or God its Author, while you are still under condemna- 
tion, is a natural impossibility ; and in these circumstances 
the profession of love is false. " I love the Lord," on the 
lips of the unforgiven being interpreted by the Searcher 
of hearts, means, I am not able to overcome God, and 
therefore I shall try to deceive him. What a dreadful 
state to be in ! and yet that is the state of every unrecon- 
ciled, unrenewed man. '' wretched man that I am, 
who shall deliver me ? " We shall see. Consider now — 

II. The Keconciliation. On this side, too, the Fact 
and its Consequences may and should be separately ex- 
plained. 

1. The Nature of the Keconciliation, and the Means of 



THEIE QUARREL MADE UP. 321 

attaining it. The agreement between the law and the 
conscience is a part of the great reconciliation between 
God and man, which is effected in and by Jesus Christ. 
He is our peace. Peace of conscience follows in the train 
of justification. 

Peace is accomplished not by persuading the law to take 
less, but by giving it all that it demands. The law's 
demands are satisfied by the Lord Jesus Christ, the sub- 
stitute of sinners. He has already accomplished the work. 
He has paid the penalty, and wrought the righteousness. 
He is God, and his work is perfect ; he is man, and his 
perfect work is available for those who are bone of his 
bone and flesh of his flesh. Our Mediator is, on the one 
hand, united as God to all the fulness of the Godhead ; 
and, on the other, as man, united to needy creatures ; so 
that out of his fulness we may receive. God has accepted 
him for all who believe in him, and to his invitation he 
makes no limit ; him that cometh He will in no wise cast 
out. 

Suppose a condemned sinner to hear, and obey, and 
live, — to receive a righteousness which he could not work. 
Then Christ's righteousness becomes his, and with it God 
is well pleased. The covenant that bestows another's 
righteousness free on the unworthy is God's covenant, 
not man's. When God is pleased with it, why should 
not we? That righteousness is to a believer the same 
as if himself had wrought it. If he has it by God's gift, 
he has as good a title to it as if it had been the result of 
his own obedience. You do not need now to trust to the 
lie on this side : My own righteousness is adequate ; 

X 



322 THE LAW AND THE CONSCIENCE : 

nor to the lie on that side : The law will relax, and he 
satisfied with imperfect obedience. You can come 
forward now, acknowledging on the one hand that you 
are unworthy, and on the other that the law is un- 
changeably holy ; and yet the law and you may meet in 
peace. It is satisfied by getting a perfect righteousness, 
and you are safe in having one to give it. The law is 
magnified, you are justified, and Christ is glorified. 
Mark now the reconciliation, — the agreement between 
the two that had fallen out. The law no longer con- 
demns you, and therefore you no longer loathe the law. 
It smiles on you, and you can afibrd to smile back again 
on it. The ground of the controversy has been taken 
away, and the controversy has fallen. While the law 
flashed unmitigated anger on you, you answered by 
impotent flashes of anger against the law. Your conscience 
is the mirror, and the law is a lamp on high. Whatever 
colour of light the lamp throws down on the mirror, that 
same colour does the mirror reflect back to the lamp. As 
long as a glare of red streamed down from the lamp on 
the mirror's receptive surface, so long did the mirror, 
according to its power, throw up a glare of red ; but 
whensoever the same living lamp began to shed down on 
the same mirror softened rays of purest white, on the 
instant the Imid redness fled from that pliant mirror's 
face, and it gleamed back, in rays of unsullied whiteness, 
a glad answer to the lamp that saluted it. 

My conscience begins to love God's law when God's 
law ceases to condemn me ; and God's law ceases to 
condemn me when I am in Christ Jesus ; " There is 



THEIR QUARREL MADE UP. 823 

therefore now no condemnation to them which are in 
Christ Jesus " (Rom. viii. 1). 

2. The Effect of the Agreement is obedience to 
the law^ — that is, the whole word of God. " Do we 
make void the law through faith ? God forbid. Yea, we 
establish the law'' (Rom. iii. 31). Such is the result at 
which we arrive when we have proceeded thus far with 
the solution of the question in our text. See the whole 
of the 119th Psalm ; observe the tone of it throughout : 
" how love I thy law ! it is my meditation all the 
day.'' You see there a cherished companionship. This 
is needed in order to actual newness of life ; and this is 
secured only by getting the enmity done away. It is 
thus with other companions. When there is a quarrel, 
and a mutual distrust, there is no walking together; but 
when the enmity is removed and friendship restored, 
you may soon see the friends by each other's side again; so 
also is it with the law and the conscience ; as long as 
there is condemnation, and the word of God is the 
accuser, there is no cordiality to it. There ma}^ be a 
show of submission, for fear of yet greater evil ; but 
there is no love to the law, and without love there is no 
real obedience. But the law that beams forth in all the 
perfections of God and yet has no charge to make in the 
judgment against you, — the law that glorifies the Judge 
and yet permits you to stand justified in his presence, — 
that law and you are at one. You have no cause of 
quarrel with it. It ceases to accuse, and you cease to 
keep it at a distance. You draw to it ; you walk with 
it ; you can make it your companion ; you can take it 



824 THE LAW AND THE CONSCIENCE : 

into your bosom and yet not be burned by its terrors ; 
you make it the man of your counsel. When the two 
are agreed they are seen walking together. On this 
principle so important was the sight of Lord Clarend(m 
and Count Orloff walking together on the streets of 
Paris during the peace conference there at the close of 
the Crimean war, that the fact was chronicled and pro- 
claimed all over Europe. The two countries, Britain 
and Russia, whose ambassadors they were, had closed 
in deadly strife on many a battle-field. It was a fruit, 
and therefore a sign, that they had agreed, when their 
representatives were seen walking together. 

The word still condemns the sins that linger in 
you ; but this does not renew the quarrel. You are 
on the side of the law, and against your own besetting 
sins. You will love it although it condemns your own 
sins ; you will love it because it condemns your own 
sins. You will gladly run to the physician, who cuts the 
gangrened limb away, although that limb be your own 
right hand. You and the law are agreed ; you take it 
continually with you as the best defence against your 
foes ; yourself will drag them forth and place them under 
the uplifted sword that they may be slain. 

I shall now conclude with a brief practical application, 
in the old-fashioned way, to sinners and saints, — to the 
converted and the unconverted. 

1. Sinners unconverted, — As long as God's law and 
you are left to fight it out, you are not holy, you are not 
happy, you are not safe. There is a quarrel ; there is 
a distance ; you cannot but feel it. It is not safe to 



THEIR QUARREL MADE UP. 325 

leave that controversy unsettled, — that enemy unappeased. 
God's law is a dreadful enemy ; it will have the last word 
with its antagonist. '' All flesh is as grass ; but the 
word of the Lord endureth for ever" (1 Pet. i. 24, 25). 
That woi-d will terrify its adversary on a death-bed, and 
meet him again in the judgment. "Agree with thine 
adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him." 
That law will allow no relaxation ; that creditor receives 
no composition from a despairing debtor. He claims 
all : " Pay me that thou owest." You may be in a 
pitiable state, but the law cannot pity you. But what 
the law could not do, God our Saviour did. Jesus wept 
over sinners. That same Jesus unchanged looks down 
on you. His bowels yearn. He complains, "Ye will 
not come to me." It is the office of the Holy Spirit to 
take the enmity away, and apply the blood of sprinkling. 
God promises the Spirit to them that ask him. " The love 
of the Spirit " is always ready. Ask and ye shall receive. 

2. Believers, — You hope that the controversy is settled, 
— that the holy law does not condemn you, — that, pleased 
with Christ's righteousness now on you, it acquits you as 
just. Well, why is there so little walking in the company 
of the friend with whom you are agreed ? 

Improve your advantage. Keep much by the word. 
Approach it without fear and estrangement. Ofler the 
law your Redeemer's righteousness, and so get near to 
it in the confidence of love. Get the good of renewed 
friendship with that once formidable foe. You have 
many enemies to be subdued, and no companion so helpful 
as God's law. Have it always at hand ; yea, hide it 



826 THE LAW AND THE CONSCIENCE, ETC. 

within your heart, where the thickest of your enemies 
are. Why so little manifestation of friendship in open 
habitual companionship ? Do I not see you going to 
some places, and tarrying in some companies, leaving 
your companion at the door? Inappropriate place, you 
say, for such a guest, — perhaps it is ; but why go into 
it yourself if it is not fit for your friend ? It is a good 
rule for a Christian to go into no company, and engage 
in no employment, except where he can take the law of 
the Lord as his companion all the way and all the time. 

But, above all, if you would grow in obedience to the 
law, realize the privileges "of the gospel. The more that 
you experience reconciliation through Christ, the more 
will you walk with God. The more that you receive of 
his grace, the more you will do to please him. Look 
unto Jesus ; the stream of obedience will flow from the 
spring of faith. Abide in Christ, and you will bear 
fruits of righteousness. The word of the Master on high 
is, " Without me ye can do nothing " (John xv. 5). The 
answer of the servant on earth is, "Through Christ I can 
do all things" (Phil. iv. 13). 

If sinners had been allowed to trample on the law of 
God, and step into heaven safe over its dishonoured body, 
the result would have been more sin ; again, if the law 
had overcome sinful men, and poured wrath to the 
uttermost upon them all, the result would still have been 
more sin. No obedience would have been produced by 
either victory. But when righteousness and peace meet 
in the Mediator, the " fruit is unto holiness, and the end 
everlasting life."" 



PHYSICAL DESTITUTION STIFLING SPIRITUAL LIFE. 827 



XXII. 

PHYSICAL DESTITUTION STIFLING 
SPIRITUAL LIFE. 

** And Moses spake so unto the children of Israel ; but they hearkened not unto 
Moses for anguish of spirit and for cruel bondage," — Exod, vi. 9. 

This fact has long since passed away ; but its lesson 
remains ever new. Its body is dead, and has returned 
to the dust ; but its spirit survives immortal. God gave 
it a body in the actual history of the Hebrews, that its 
meaning might become articulate to human ears. A 
permanent principle of our nature, and a distinctive 
feature of the divine government are here embodied in 
an example. Finding the fact in the history, we open 
it in order to extract the undying truth which it con- 
tains. We shall endeavour to explain the historic inci- 
dent, and to apply the spiritual lesson. 

I. The Fact which embodies the principle. 
II. The Principle which is embodied in the fact. 

I. The Fact which embodies the principle. It consists 
of three parts : — 

1. The message addressed to Israel : " Moses so spake 
unto the children of Israel.'" 

2. Their neglect of the message : " They hearkened 
not unto Moses." 



S28 PHYSICAL DESTITUTION 

3. The reason of their neglect : " For anguish of spirit 
and for cruel bondage." 

1. The message (verses 1-8), in its substance and its 
circumstances, was fitted to arrest the people's attention 
and win their love. In that message, whether you re 
gard its Author, its bearer, or its nature, everything 
tended to entice ; nothing to repel them. Its author was 
the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob ; its bearer 
was Moses, a man who for their sakes had sacrificed his 
position among the princes of Pharaoh, and taken refuge 
in a desert ; its nature was hope to the desponding and 
freedom to the enslaved. The time, too, seemed fit : 
when the bondage had become unbearable, word is sent 
that the bondage is almost done. Before the slave a 
prospect of liberty is opened ; before the weary a pros- 
pect of rest. Will the drooping spirits of the multitude 
revive at this intelligence ? will they shake off the inert 
submissiveness of a lifetime, and boldly strike for freedom 
in concert with their deliverer? 

2. No. The promise, although it was exceedingly 
rich and precious, stirred not the sluggish mass. It was 
a spark of fire that fell, but it fell on wetted wood, and 
kindled therefore no flame. " They hearkened not unto 
Moses."' Why? No people could be in deeper afilic- 
tion ; to no afilicted people could a kinder message come, 
no kind message could be better authenticated, and yet 
they heeded not. They neither denied the truth of the 
message, nor injured the messenger who bore it. When 
God's great salvation was provided and offered, the 
people neglected it. This is the head and front of theii 



STIFLING SPIRITUAL LIFE. 829 

offending. They said nothing against it, but they let it 
alone. 

3. Examine now the specific reason of their apathy. 
The cause of their indifference to liberty was the extreme 
severity of their bondage. They hearkened not " for 
anguish of spirit and for cruel bondage." 

Here is a paradox : the slavery is excessively severe, 
and therefore the slave does not care for freedom. One 
would say the force of the reason goes all the other way. 
We would rather expect that in proportion to the cruelty 
of the yoke that galled them would be the alacrity of the 
captives in rising at a redeemer's call. Had their con- 
dition been the reverse of what it was ; had the Pharaoh 
of that generation continued to lavish kindness on 
Joseph's kindred ; had the Hebrews been nursed in 
luxury and sated with the wealth of Egypt ; had they 
been the possessors of the soil and the favourites of the 
monarch, — all this might have been given as the reason 
why they treated with indifference the proffered method 
of escape. Such prosperity might, and would have made 
them deaf to the emancipator's call. But because the 
extreme of prosperity makes a people callous to the voice 
of freedom, it does not follow that the extreme of adver- 
sity will put courage in their hearts and vigour in their 
limbs. It is a widely-spread and well-known law, that 
extremes meet. In this case two opposite experiences 
issue in the same result. Both great prosperity and 
great distress are weights that often crush in the dust 
every aspiration for freedom. Plenty extinguishes the 
desire, and oppression the hope of liberty. He who has 



880 PHYSICAL DESTiTurro:?^ 

all earthly good does not want a change ; and he who 
has none does not expect to get one ; therefore both sit 
still. 

We are accustomed to think and say that if Israel had 
been prosperous in Egypt, they would not have been 
willing to leave it. This is true ; and yet it does not 
come into collision with the other truth that their 
anguish was the reason of their indifference. Broken 
hearts have lost their spring, and cannot bound from the 
bottom of the pit at the call of a Deliverer. Great need 
does not, alone, produce great exertion. The hopeless, 
helpless captive steadily refuses to stir, lest the chain by 
the movement should saw deeper into his flesh. 

Afterwards these same Hebrews rose and shook off 
the iron yoke that had lain so long upon their bodies, 
and sunk so deeply into their souls. The very anguish 
of spirit, too, which, in the time of their bondage, rendered 
them listless, in the day of their deliverance, contri- 
buted an impulse to their flight. But the mere dead- 
weight of oppression does not stimulate to exertion : 
until a door of hope is opened, pressure only presses 
down. It was when the outstretched arm of their 
covenant God had rent the prison walls, that the prisoners 
listened to their leader's call, and followed in his steps. 
When the way was opened the exodus began. The 
proverb, " Where there is a will there is a way,'^ con- 
tains a truth useful as far as it goes, and in its own 
department ; but a deeper and more comprehensive truth 
lies in its converse : Where there is a way there is a 
wilL 



STIFLING SPIRITUAL LIFE. 831 

II. The Principle embodied in tbe fact. 

These things happened to them in order that their 
history might be a type for us : it is our business, 
therefore, to turn the type over, and impress it on our 
own experience. The operation will produce a legible 
page of spiritual instruction suited to our own circum- 
stances and our own times. 

The stor}^ of this ancient incident may seem at first 
sight to have no more affinity with modern character and 
conduct, than the mummies which travellers dig from the 
tombs in Egypt have with the living men and women of 
the present day ; yet it is precisely such a body that can 
look into our faces, and dart convincing truth into our 
consciences, whenever the Spirit of the Lord has breathed 
into it a living soul. The letter, in itself dead, may, 
through the ministry of the Spirit, become living and im- 
part life. So be it. Lord, by thy grace, and to thy glory. 

In the printed lesson, as in the impressed type, there 
are three distinct constituent parts : the message, the 
neglect of the message, and the reason of the neglect. 
The third of these points is the distinguishing peculiarity 
of the text, and for it, accordingly, the greater part of 
our time and attention must be reserved. 

1. The message. To us, as to them, it is a message 
of mercy. Specifically, it proclaims deliverance to the 
captive. The whole history of Israel, including the 
exode, is framed for the purpose of showing a sinner's 
need, and the redemption which the Saviour brings. Do 
not imagine that the bondage and emancipation of the 
Hebrews constitute the original, and that man's fall and 



S32 PHYSICAL DESTITUTION 

Christ's salvation were cast after it on the same mould. 
The history of redemption is precisely the reverse. The 
method of mercy lay from the first in the infinite Mind. 
Throughout the preparatory ages, before the fulness of 
time, the delights of the Deliverer were with the captives 
in their prison.. At sundry times and in divers manners 
he projected into time shadows and figures of his prede- 
termined covenanted work. Sometimes by instituted 
ordinances, and sometimes in providential events, he re- 
vealed the leading features of his plan, before he came in 
person to execute it. He longed for the set time, and 
was straitened till it came. He hovered on the edge of 
the unseen eternity, and threw over into our world some 
suggestive types of his great design. The incident re- 
corded in our text is one of these. 

God recognises all mankind as slaves, and sends 
an offer of freedom. Christ is the messenger of the 
covenant. A greater than Moses is here, publishing a 
greater salvation. Through the lamb slain is the deliver- 
ance wrought. The death of Christ is the death of death. 
The sea of wrath is divided, and the redeemed of the 
Lord pass through. As with ancient Israel, so with 
all Abraham's spiritual seed, they are delivered from one 
master in order that they may obey another. " Let my 
people go, that they may serve me." He who redeems 
them from the oppressor betrothes them to himself. He 
allures them into the wilderness, and abides with them 
there. The glory of the Lord goes before them during 
the journey, and settles on the mercy-seat when they 
reach the promised land. 



STIFLING SPIRITUAL LIFE. 833 

2. Sucli is the proposal ; but it is not heeded. Com- 
paratively few disbelieve the message or revile the mes- 
senger. With these, be they few or many, we have at 
present no direct concern. The circumstances of our 
times, and the character of our people, concur with the 
text in directing our attention, not to the opposers, but 
to the neglecters of the great salvation. 

3. The reason of this neglect. In the case of the 
Hebrews it was anguish of spirit and cruel bondage. 
Let us beware of mistake here. Both with them and 
with us the true cause of the listlessness is the carnal 
mind, which is enmity against God. But while the evil 
heart is in every case the seat of rebellion, other and 
outward things become, from time to time, the instru- 
ments and occasions of specific disloyalties. For ex- 
ample, some are so prosperous, and so fully satisfied with 
their prosperity in this life, that they have neither time 
nor inclination to attend to the life eternal : others are 
so oppressed with grief, and care, and toil, that they never 
get their heads lifted up from the dust to take one look 
of heaven. At one time prosperity, and at another time 
adversity, becomes the immediate occasion to an evil 
heart of departing from the living God. 

At present we are called to investigate only one class 
of these occasions or causes of neglect. Anguish of spirit 
and cruel bondage still make many captives hug their 
chains, and refuse to hear the voice which invites them 
to glorious liberty. Many of these burdens are themselves 
sins, and many more are the fruits of sins ; but they are 
not on that account less heavy or less effectual as sopori- 



S3 4 PHYSICAL DESTITUTION 

fics of the soul. We speak of them at present mainly in 
their character of oppressive weights, and only incidentally 
in their character of sins. 

The lesson here parts into two branches, one pointing 
to our neighbour's neglect, and another to our own. 

(1.) The first lesson teaches the duty of Christ's dis- 
ciples to a careless neighbourhood. Abject poverty in 
these favoured lands exacts a heavier task than Pharaoh 
from a more numerous host than the Hebrews in Egypt. 
It is true that their own vice is the direct cause of the 
greatest and sorest portion of the people's poverty ; and 
it is also true that almost all the difficulty of drying up 
the broad stream of pauperism is due to its connection 
with the well-spring of vice. These facts are both real 
and important ; but though in themselves, and for other 
purposes great, the}^ do not bear very much or very directly 
on our present inquiry. For the present we include, of 
design, in one view, the poverty both of the vicious and 
of their victims. Heavy burdens, whatever may have 
brought them on, keep human souls, as well as human 
bodies, cleaving to the dust. 

Low, dark, damp, close, crowded dwellings, — rags andfilth 
adhering to the person, — the want of a bed for rest by 
night, and a seat for rest by day, — food unwholesome in 
character, and deficient in quantity, — these and a host 
of kindred evils considered not as sins, but as sorrows, 
depress and oppress the spirits of the poor, so that the 
voice of divine mercy finds no tender spot to touch them 
on. Oppression makes even a wise man mad : what 
then is its effect on those who are not wise ? It makes 



STIFLING SPIRITUAL LIFE. 335 

them madder. Their souls are soured to the bottom, 
and they care neither for God nor man. A very large 
portion of the population, especially in the great cities, 
is in this condition. They are desperate and reck- 
less. They do not dread a worse fate than that which 
has already befallen them, and do not expect a better. 
They are destitute alike of fear and of hope. The spirit, 
steeped long in anguish, and crushed down by a cruel 
bondage, sullenly, silently, conclusively dares God and 
man to do their worst. Of what lies above and beyond 
this world they know little, and care less. One half of 
the Epicurean's short creed serves them : Let us hunger 
and starve to-day, and die to-morrow. 

Observe, I am not palliating sin ; I am only owning 
a fact. Nor do I exaggerate its character. I would not 
be able to do so, although I were willing. The truth 
here is stranger and stronger than any fiction can be. 

What shall be done? They who walk by sight 
through this valley of dry bones cannot hope ; and they 
who do not hope cannot make an adequate effort. Truly, 
the sights that may be seen on the right hand and on 
the left of our daily walk should send us both to prayers 
and to pains. We need a hopeful heart and a working 
hand. Mark how the promise runs : " The God of peace 
shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly.'" Don't de- 
spair because of the greatness of the work, for God will 
do it ; but don't sit idle, for it is under your feet that 
the adversary will be crushed at length. 

I am constrained to utter here what I count the pre- 
sent truth in this department : that while the disciples 



SS6 PHYSICAL DESTITUTION 

of Christ should not give less attention to spiritual teach- 
ing, they should give more to the material wellbeing of 
fallen brothers. We must, like our Master, take hold of 
them by the body in order that we may reach their souls. 
Self-sacrificing, laborious effort to improve the temporal 
condition of the poor is a species of revival much needed 
in the Church of Christ. Of course I do not counsel 
donations of money or food to the vicious, instead of re- 
proof and instruction : I claim the union of the two. 
As I own on one hand, that a body of material benevol- 
ence, wanting the living soul of spiritual instruction, is 
only a carcase that will speedily corrupt, — I insist on the 
other, that we should not expect to scatter the strong 
sins and sorrows of humanity by the ghost of good advice, 
not embodied in substantial help to the flesh and blood 
of our brethren. " The poor ye have always with you.'' 
He who has left them with us looks down to see whether, 
in our method of treating them, we shall follow his ex- 
ample, or seek our own ease. Every person should mourn 
apart for past neglect in this department, and forthwith 
begin to do, with all his might, whatever his hand finds 
to do. But isolated effort cannot go far : the emergency 
demands combined plans and corporate powers. God is 
tr3dng, not only our individual faith, but also our national 
Christianity. By his sovereign gift, and through the 
faithfulness of our forefathers, we have inherited un- 
equalled social, civil, and religious privileges ; and the 
nation is now on its trial whether it will own or repudi- 
ate the duties which these privileges imply. 

If the Spirit were poured out like a flood, the dark, 



STIFLING SPIEITUAL LIFE. 837 

dishonouring spots would speedily be washed away. As 
in the broad, deep, pure lake, which sleeps aloft among 
the hills, there is enough of water, when the channels are 
formed and the sluices opened, to cleanse away the ac- 
cumulated filth of the city ; so, if our churches, and other 
Christian organizations, were let into the upper spring of 
divine grace, these channels themselves would be flushed 
and purified, and the overflow would bear away the in- 
durated corruption of many generations. If a whole 
congregation of quickened, thankful, hopeful, eager Chris- 
tians were lifted bodily by the love of Him who bought 
them, and precipitated in mass upon a neighbourhood 
where the people live not only without God, but almost 
without clothes in the world, — where men and women of 
the same flesh and blood with ourselves, pine without a 
home on earth or a hope in heaven, we might vdth God's 
blessing save our brethren. Little driblets are, or seem 
to be, lost in the ground ; a great gush would tell upon 
the vices and privations of a downfallen and downtrodden 
district. 

People should not be laid beneath the ground till they 
are dead. Room ought to be made on the surface of 
God's earth, and in sight of his sun, for all his living 
children. A man s right to do what he likes with his 
own should, in obedience to the divine law, and for 
behoof of the poor, be limited by the national will in 
the form of an imperial law. There is clamant need for 
more paternal laws, and more vigorous administration, in 
regard to the dwellings of the poor, both in town and 
country. 



838 PHYSICAL DESTITUTION 

The feeblest section of society, children in silliness 
though old in years, should not be abandoned as material 
of trade to an inordinate swarm of publicans. Does any 
one imagine that a nation can thrive under the government 
of the Supreme, if it is unable or unwilling to protect those 
helpless beings ? We cannot escape : the wheels of Pro- 
vidence are turning slowly, but steadily round; and they 
are so constructed that, while they grasp the smallest, they 
in due time crush the greatest oppressions. Even among 
the wreck and debris of humanity that is cast up in 
heaps on the shores of our greater seas of population, 
laws are understood and kept which savour more of 
humanity than ours. In their otherwise savage con- 
flicts, they will not suffer the stronger to strike the 
weaker wretch after he is down. We permit the dram- 
seller to prey upon his victim after he has lost all power 
of resistance. After strong drink has softened his brain 
and slackened all his sinews, drained the manhood out 
and injected a sevenfold measure of Satanic passion in 
its stead, the seller may still make money out of these 
remnants of humanity as long as they will yield a drop 
to the screw; and when the soul of the worn-out trans- 
gressor goes to God's judgment- seat, the dishonoured dust 
is buried at our expense. While all this is going on, we 
stand and look as if we could not help it; we could help 
it, if we would. We ought to defend the poor, although 
his own sin has brought on his poverty; God will require 
this at our hands. 

I know well that we ought to preach the gospel to 
the poor, and that the poor ought to obey it; I know 



STIFLING SPIRITUAL LIFE. 839 

furtlier that when God is pleased to pour out his Spirit 
with the ministry of the word, all these obstacles disappear 
in a day, like broken ice in the spring-flood of a mighty 
river. A general revival would make short work with 
these mountains, and cast them all into the midst of the 
sea. Counting on their Eedeemer's power and love. 
Christians should ask and expect such a revival ; but by 
withholding our hand we are provoking God to withhold 
his Spirit. I do not think we would succeed if we 
should abandon our scriptural, spiritual appliances, and 
launch into social and material eff'orts in their stead. 
That would be infidelity, and the dead body of our 
benevolence would work no deliverance; but, maintain- 
ing and enlarging all our spiritual hopes and means, 
we should plant material efforts on a parallel line, tenfold 
more efficient than we have attempted heretofore. In 
view of the economic and corporeal bondage, which is, in 
point of fact, making multitudes deaf to the offer of 
divine mercy, I do not counsel my brethren to try works 
instead of faith; but I proclaim my fear that our faith 
without works is dead, being alone. 

(2.) The second lesson applies more directly to our- 
selves. Anguish of spirit, whether it comes from God's 
hand in the form of personal affliction, or from man's 
hand in the form of unjust oppression, may become the 
occasion of neglecting the salvation of Christ. You have 
been led, some by the representations of others, and some 
by personal experience, to look upon a time of trouble as 
a time of spiritual revival. Thanks be to our gracious 
God, it very often is. But beware; the day of anguish 



34<0 PHYSICAL DESTITUTION 

from any cause is not a sinner's best day for seeking a 
Saviour. Sorrow is not seed. By breaking up the 
ground, it may conspire with other means to make the 
seed grow better, but itself bears no fruit ; but in some cases 
its actual effect is to crush and not to stimulate. Beware 
of neglecting your spiritual state and interests while you 
are well, in the expectation that distress when it comes 
will make you religious. There is no truth in nature 
more certain than this, that the time of health and happi- 
ness is the best time for cleaving to Christ and making 
our calling and election sure. Then it could be best done, 
if men would then do it. 

Beware lest you be letting the best time slip past, and 
the worst time draw on, while you are not saved! But, 
besides the many testimonies of Scripture to the spiritual 
profitableness of affliction, you have seen examples of 
men who neglected the Saviour in the time of health, 
seeking him successfully when trouble came. True; you 
have seen on earth such instances, and if you get into 
heaven you will see many more; but all this does not 
prove your case. Here is a man who once possessed a 
fortune, and while he possessed it, could neither keep a 
roof ,over his head, nor procure a comfortable meal. 
Now, after having wasted both his money and his health, 
he lives and lodges better on a few weekly shillings, won 
by the sweat of his wrinkled brow. Does the man's 
present comfort entice you to imitate his former wasteful- 
ness? No; his experience does not prove that a scanty 
pittance with hard toil and a feeble frame is better fitted 
to secure material comforts than a full income with 



STIFLING SPIRITUAL LIFE. 84^1 

health and strength; it proves only that a shred of 
remnant means, when wisely laid out, yields more sub- 
stantial comfort than thousands wasted on vice. But 
these thousands, if they had been rightly applied, would 
have done more to sustain, and preserve, and invigorate 
life than the wages of a worn-out labourer. One pound 
economically and skilfully employed does more to make 
home happy than ten pounds thrown away; but it does 
not follow that for the comfort of a family one pound 
does more than ten. Ten pounds will do precisely ten 
times as much, if they are not wasted, but properly 
applied. 

In the outlay of the soul's talents the same law holds 
good. It is true that some who were worldly or profane 
in the time of prosperity have become true Christians in 
a time of trouble ; but no thanks to tliem for that. It is 
no credit to us that we need such discipline; and no 
profit that we wait for it. It is true that God in sove- 
reign mercy often uses affliction to bring us to Christ ; 
but he does so because we would not come to Christ at 
an earlier and better time. The mind may be heavenly 
without "sore bondage," and earthly with it. If you 
beckon the Spirit off till affliction come, affliction may 
come without the Spirit. There is no " anguish of spirit" 
in " the just made perfect," and yet they are like flames 
of fire in the keenness of their love to the Lord that 
bought them. They are happiest who give their bright 
days to Christ; for when the dark days come, the Light 
of Life continues to shine within their hearts. 



342 MAN AND HIS GLORY 



XXIIL 



MAN AND HIS GLORY LIKE THE GRASS 
AND ITS FLOWER. 

** Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of 
God, which liveth and abideth for ever. For all flesh is as grass, and all 
the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the 
flower thereof falleth away : but the word of the Lord endureth for ever." — • 
1 Pet. i. 23-25. 

These verses institute a comparison, and bring out a 
contrast, between the natural and the spiritual life. Every 
son of man is born into one life ; and every son of God 
is born again into another. There is a mystery in every 
man ; but a greater mystery in every Christian. Nature 
is deep ; but grace is deeper. 

It is not a contrast between the carnal and the 
spiritual mind. Of these it cannot be said that the one 
is short-lived and the other enduring. Spirit does not die, 
whether saved or unsaved. The two lives brought to- 
gether in the text are the natural life of men in the 
body which soon fades away, and the new life of the re- 
generated which will for ever flourish. These two lives 
are not in all their aspects opposite, for the same person 
may at the same time possess both. When a man is 
born of the Spirit, he is not then and thereby stripped 
of the life which belongs to the flesh : every child of God, 
from the day of his conversion till the day of his death, 
possesses and enjoys both. He holds them, however, by 



LIKE THE GRASS AND ITS FLOWER. 843 

different tenures : the first or natural life will soon de- 
part ; but the new or spiritual life will be his for ever. 

That which is in the text expressly and repeatedly 
said to be everlasting, is not the Scriptures as an exter- 
nal revelation of truth, but the " word of God" as the 
seed of a new life in believers. There is a sense in which 
it may be truly said that the written word, viewed 
objectively, will last for ever ; but the apostle speaks 
here of the word as it lies in the broken heart, and lives 
in the new creature. 

In the 23d verse we learn that the new life of Chris- 
tians springing from incorruptible seed is like the seed 
from which it springs ; in the 24 th verse, quoted from 
Isaiah (chap. xL), we learn that the natural life of the body 
which we all possess in common is like the green herbage, 
and all its glory like the flower which that herbage bears. 
The two are compared in respect to endurance, and the 
result is, that while the one lasts only a season, the other 
will never die. 

I. Explain the analogy. 
II. Illustrate its truth by examples. 
III. Apply the lessons which it contains. 

I. Explain the analogy. " All flesh is as grass, and 
all the glory of man as the flower of the grass;" the 
figure fits so exactly that we may venture to make a 
close inspection, and institute a minute analysis. The 
comparison of human life generally to the green herbage 
contains two distinct yet corresponding parts, expressed 



344 MAN AND HIS GLORY 

in the usual manner of Hebrew poetry. First, we 
have the simple, broad, and comprehensive intimation, 
" All flesh is grass ;'" and then a more special analog}?- 
rising out of it, as the flower springs from the stalk, 
" The glory of man is like the flower of the grass/' Man 
is like the grass, and his glory like its flower ; life is 
short, and the period of its perfect development between 
the first and the second childhood is shorter still. 

The analogy, in its first and more general form, requires 
scarcely any exposition : no comparison could be more 
true or more obvious. Mankind are like the herbage of 
summer, which will wither at the turn of the year, 
although no accident befall it, and is liable to be crushed 
before its time under the wild beast's foot, or cut through 
by the mower's scythe. A human life passes through 
the same stages as the herbage of a season ; it has a 
growing spring, a ripening summer, and a fading autumn. 
The history of a man consists of a gradual growing to 
maturity, and a gradual declining to the grave. Such is 
his best estate, when no accident cuts him off" in mid-time 
of his days. This is the mirror which truly refiects the 
image of " all flesh." So pass the threescore and ten 
years which sum up this mortal pilgrimage. It is like 
a dream when one awaketh : it seems very small when 
it is nearly done. 

But if this is true of the flesh — the sentient nature 
which man has in common with the brutes, — what shall 
be said of all that constitutes his distinguishing peculiarity 
as a moral and intelligent being? Although the mere 
flesh is evanescent, what of the glory with which his 



LIKE THE GRASS AND ITS FLOWER. 345 

Maker has crowned his head ? Our text has two things 
to say of this glory — the first, that it greatly excels in 
worth and beauty the animal nature on which it gi^ows ; 
the second, that it is still more short-lived. If all flesh 
be as the grass, all its glory is as the flower of the grass. 
And what are the distinOTishinoj characteristics of the 
flower ? These two : greater brilliance, and a shorter day. 
The herbage grows long and far ere the flower appears ; 
and the flower, though more beautiful than its supporting 
stalk, fades and falls before it. The flower is indeed the 
glory of the grass, but it comes up later, and withers earlier. 
What shall we say, then, of all that is peculiar to man ? 
■ — of that human face divine, and that articulate speech, 
and that calculating mind, which mark him out as the 
chief of God's creatures here, and ruler of his world ? 
Can the glory of man's soul, as well as his sentient 
nature, be compared to grass ? No ; for though it is 
more brilliant while it lasts, it is sooner over. The dis- 
tinguishing excellence of human nature is not like the 
grass, it is only like the flower of the grass. 

None of these defects adhere to the new creature. 
The life which is hid with Christ in God is not like 
grass; it will never decay. The features of the Re- 
deemer's likeness, which, through the ministry of the 
Spirit, gradually grow upon it and constitute its glory, 
are not like earthly flowers. Those who have been 
created again in Christ Jesus shall stand around the throne 
in white clothing, with palms in their hands. They are 
and shall be for ever, without spot, or wrinkle, or any 
such thing. Let us now, 



346 MAN AND HIS GLORY 

II. Illustrate the truth of the analogy by examples, 
"We shall examine in detail some specimens of those 
flowers which constitute the glory of humanity, with the 
view of pointing out that, though they fade soon from the 
natural life of the mere son of man, they flourish for ever 
on the resurrection life of those who in the regeneration 
have become the children of God. 

]. Beauty of form ought, without any scruple, to be 
ranked as one of the glories of humankind ; we should 
neither despise nor adore it. It is quite true that it 
often becomes a snare, — becomes the handle by which 
the tempter holds his victim, — but that is no detraction 
from its excellence. It only shows — what we all knew 
before — that bad people abuse good things. The erect 
attitude, the upward look on heaven, the symmetry of 
structure and nicely-balanced proportions, the expressive 
features, and the various peculiarities of shade, and form, 
and motion, and magnitude, which go to constitute human 
beauty, should not be lightly esteemed. In our species 
beauty of person is the rule and tendency of nature, 
although particular features in individuals may by various 
accidents be more or less obscured. It has pleased God 
our Father so to arrange the features of our frame, and 
so to constitute our minds, that we coimt them beautiful. 
We admire the flower of the grass, and devoutly see in it 
the wisdom of its Maker ; shall we not look with deeper 
interest on a lighted human countenance, and see in that 
glory of man a glory to the Lord? Loathe as much 
as you will the moral depravity which converts all a 
Father's gifts into instruments of evil ; but reverently 



LIKE THE GRASS AND ITS FLOWER. 347 

acknowledge the mark of his fingers in the model of 
man. 

This glory does not last long. It is a flower, lovely, 
fragrant, attractive; but it withers soon. Man's life is 
short; but the glory which grows upon it is shorter. 
The flower is later blown and earlier faded than the frail 
green stem which bears it. 

But the beauty of the new creature in Christ does not 
fade like a flower. It is an interesting speculation — 
although it can be nothing more — to imagine the beauty 
of unfallen man. The peculiar sweetness sometimes im- 
parted to the countenance of an ordinary person by the 
sudden influx of a "great peace" in periods of spirit- 
ual revival, suggests the probability that we lost by sin 
an external loveliness so great that we lack now the 
power even of conceiving what it was. But great though 
the loss be. Christians sorrow not over it as those who 
have no hope; for their gain is greater. Whatever 
was lost by sin is restored by redemption. Well might 
the angel say, "Why weepest thou?" to the disciple who 
was sorrowing beside the empty grave of Jesus. The 
Head has risen ; the members shall rise. The risen 
Christ is glorious, and risen Christians will be like him. 
Humanity redeemed will be humanity perfect. As the 
idea of man in the mind of God from eternity, will be the 
man who shall stand in his presence accepted at the great 
day. 

I would fain realize the beauty of the resurrection 
body, as well as the spiritual purity of the saints in light. 
Oh, how beautiful man wiU be when there is no longer 



S48 MAN AND HIS GLORY. 

any seed of corruption in his body, or any enmity 
to God in his soul ! I think a true Christian some- 
times halts painfully in his pilgrimage for want of this 
ingredient in his hope. The redemption of the soul is, 
indeed, the most precious thing; thereon depend all 
other blessings; but among the blessed things that lean 
on it, the perfection of the redeemed body is a consoling 
hope — a consolation which Christians greatly need in 
this vale of tears. " How bright these glorious spirits 
shine ! " Yea ; but when Christ's work is completed, they 
will be embodied spirits. " How bright these glorious 
bodies shine," when they are washed from sin in the 
Saviour's blood, and raised from the grave by his power ! 
These flowers will never fade. 

2. Articulate speech is another glory of man. It places 
him far above the flesh — the sentient nature which he 
shares with the inferior creatures. It is like a flower in 
respect to its surpassing beauty ; and like a flower, too, 
in respect to its short duration. It lasts longer than 
some flowers, but not so long as the herb on which it 
grows. It does not open its blossom until the human 
creature has spent an infantine spring, dumb like the 
brutes ; and it begins to fade before the natural life has 
altogether decayed. Infancy does not possess it at all ; 
and old age retains only its shattered remnants. 

As it springs in the new life this is a perennial flower. 
How sweet will speech be when aU languages shall have 
been merged in one, and all tongues be employed in pub- 
lishing the Redeemer's praise ! This glory of the flesh 
will drop in the dust soon, like flowers under the first 



LIKE THE GEASS AND ITS FLOWER. S49 

frosts of autumn, — these tongues will soon be silent ; but 
if we are new creatures in Christ, they will yet speak 
again. Striving to realize the highest conceivable degree 
of excellence in speech, Paul (1 Cor. xiii.) suggests the 
idea of one speaking "with the tongues of men and of 
angels."* That which the greatest saint in the body here 
could only with difficulty imagine, the meanest saint in 
glory will actually enjoy. In addition to the tongue of 
angels, of which the spirits made perfect will partake, the 
redeemed of the Lord in their resurrection state will 
regain the tongue of men, and, with both experiences 
combined, will sustain the highest part in the concert of 
a new creation. 

"Every man that hath this hope in him, purifieth 
himself even as he is pure " (1 John iii. 3). Hope in 
Christ leads to holiness; and, in particular, the hope of 
employing these tongues in speaking the Redeemer's 
praise among perfected saints and angels, would be mighty 
to purge them from all impurity now. Shall I defile 
with lies or lewdness that wonderfully-fashioned instru- 
ment on which the name of Christ will resound for ever 
in a holy heaven ? Your tongues. Christians, are bought 
with a price ; they are not your ovni ; surrender them to 
the service of their owner. '' Speaking the truth in 
love " is the phase which the flower should maintain 
under these wintry skies now ; what the beauty of its 
blossom shall be, eye hath not seen nor ear heard. 

3. The various powers of mind which go to make up 
the peculiar glory of man are so many flowers, both for beauty 
and for brevity. Out of many take, for example, one : — 



350 MAN AND HIS GLORY 

Memory. A gorgeous blossom to grow in such a lowly 
place, and be sustained by such a fragile stalk ! So many 
and so great are its uses in the various operations of 
human minds and human hands, that, wanting it, man 
would not be man. It goes into everything, and goes, 
not as an accessory, but an essential. It is the thread on 
which all the pearls of knowledge are strung : if it were 
drawn out, the various processes of the -understanding 
would fall and lie like glittering beads scattered on the 
ground. Wanting memory, all mental activity would be 
like a heap of leaden letters in a printer's fount, with no 
skilful hand to set them in an intelligible page. 

Like a flower as to beauty while it blooms, it is like a 
flower, too, in its tendency to fade. It does not appear 
so early as the herb, and does not remain so long. By 
slow degrees and much labour the memory is exer- 
cised into strength. In its maturity it has a glory 
that excelleth : it is one of the fearful and wonderful 
things in our frame. In the processes of business, of 
music, of science, its glory glances forth like sunbeams: 
but if man lives out his allotted span, this flower which 
grows so sweetly on his flesh will fade before him. It is 
a melancholy sight to see it drooping while its stalk still 
stands sapful and vigorous. The sagacious merchant who 
was wont to sit in silence at his desk, holding in his 
hands the multifarious threads of a business which spread 
like network across four continents, remains at home 
now ; or enters the ofiice at the accustomed hour, to 
turn mechanically the leaves of the ledger, which to him 
has lost its meaning. Younger men grasped the reins as 



LIKE THE GRASS AND ITS FLOWER- 351 

they fell from his feeble fingers, and the *'head of the 
firm'^ is gently set aside. In like manner the man of 
science loses himself in labyrinths through which he once 
could easily thread his way. The senator leaves the 
stage of public life, or rather is jostled out by stronger, 
because younger competitors. In all these spheres the process 
of decay is similar ; the old man has not now so good a 
memory as once he had ; or some other essential faculty 
has given way. The herbage is still green, but the 
flower has withered; the living man is there, but his 
glory has departed. 

So fades the flower from the natural life ; but on the 
new life of the regenerate it blooms for ever. Those who 
are branches in the true vine, draw from his root an 
unfading freshness. 

" Those that within the house of God, 
Are planted by his grace, 
They shall grow up, and flourish all 
In our Grod's holy place/' 

Memory in the resurrection life will never grow dim : it 
will be a mirror always bright, in which the ever-length- 
ening past may be clearly seen. The redeemed of the 
Lord, when they have arrived at home, " forget not all 
his benefits." The fall by sin, and the pardon through 
Christ, — the death in which they lay, and the life into 
which the Holy Spirit led them, — the pardoned will never 
forget. These will constitute the materials of the new 
song, and the song will be always new. By its nature 
and its circumstances the new life must be making 
constant progress ; it cannot stand still. As ages pass 



S52 MAN AND HIS GLORY 

there will be more mercies to be remembered, and the 
memory will contaia more. The memory of the just 
made perfect will "grow by what it feeds on/' "All 
the fulness of God" lies open as the treasure out of 
which it may draw its supply, and it will therefore be 
ever filling, never full. 

No petal shall ever drop from that flower after it has been 
transplanted into the garden of God ; not one of all the 
multitude of mercies which he has enjoyed will ever slip 
from the memory of a saint in rest. The glory of the 
new man is not like the flowers of the earth, which sparkle 
"upwards on the sky for a season and then die ; but, like 
those flowers of light which lie spread so thickly on the 
field of heaven, and shed thence their mild lustre on 
the earth, it will "shine as the stars for ever and 
ever.'' 

III. Apply the lessons which the text contains. The 
analogy is exquisite, and the parallel lines of Hebrew 
poetry in which it is expressed are admirably fitted to 
bring out its beauty. We can all in some measure 
appreciate the truth of the sentiment, and the appropriate- 
ness of the language in which it is clothed; but if we go no 
further, the word will be to us "the letter wliich killeth," 
and not "the Spirit which giveth life." Beautiful imagery 
cannot take away sin, either in its condemning guilt or its 
ruling power. To gratify the taste does not make the 
heart new. The lesson so sweetly spoken here concerns 
ourselves ; it is fitted to search and solemnize us. Laying 
the axe to the root of nature's best supports, it should 



LIKE THE GRASS AND ITS FLOWER. 853 

make us flee " for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set 
before us/' 

The practical lesson of the text is directly applicable 
both to those who have attained the spiritual, and those 
who possess as yet only the natural life. To those it 
says, Of the two lives which stir within you, one will 
wither soon, and the other Will bloom for ever, — do not 
neglect the greater for the less ; to these it says. The only 
life which you have will fade like the grass, — seek, ere it 
be too late, the life eternal. 

1. Christian, two distinct lives throb within you; the 
one, by its hurried, bustling motion, is "beating the dead 
march to the grave;" the other, though feeble as a new- 
born babe, being '' hid with Christ in God," is now and 
shall for ever be beyond the reach of death. Here the 
question naturally arises, Do you distribute your regard 
between these two according to their worth ? What shall 
we eat, what shall we drink, and wherewithal shall we 
be clothed? is a great cry in the world, — a great cry in 
the church. It is not wrong to raise it ; it is the duty 
of a Christian to care for the natural life which God has 
given him ; to neglect it would be to throw his gifts 
away. The Bible does not bid us neglect the natural 
life, but it suggests some pungent questions regarding its 
comparative worth : " What shall it prx)fit a man if he 
shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" 
" Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, 
and all these things shall be added unto you." 

The spiritual life is an exotic in this world, and needs 
more care than the other which is indigenous in the soil. 



354 MAN AND HIS GLORY 

"Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling '* 
(Phil. ii. 12). Fear and trembling are the words; fear 
lest the new life wither for want of depth, or be scorched 
by temptation, or choked by the world's cares. Christians 
should not lay out their strength in the cultivation of 
this green herb and its transient flower; in decking this 
frail body, and polishing this human speech, and exercis- 
ing their mental faculties on things that perish in the 
using. Give all these their own subordinate place, and 
let the deepest, strongest, straining of your soul go to 
cherish unto strength that other life which is " Christ in 
you the hope of glory" (Col. i. 27). 

2. It is a great mistake to leave a precious soul to the 
chances of this short, uncertain life. Such blunders are not 
common in the business of the world. The valuable cargo 
must indeed be, in one sense, intrusted to the frail ship 
in a stormy season near a rocky shore ; but ere the ship 
has left the river, the goods are insured to the fuU extent 
of their value. In complicated transactions you may 
sometimes meet with loss in spite of all your care ; but 
you do not in mere recklessness rush into foreseen disaster. 
In a certain transaction you require security, and two are 
laid before you for your choice ; one is the name of a 
shifty, slippery, venturesome, penniless man, and the other 
a first bond on a broad estate ; you never hesitate, and 
never err. Where the distinction between the uncertain 
and the sure is so obvious and so important, the instinct 
of self-interest fastens at once upon the good and rejects 
the evil. Oh, for a similar sense and vigour in the 
management of our highest interests ! This life is likej 



LIKE THE GEASS AND ITS FLOWER 355 

the grass ; it will wither at the end of the season ; all the 
glory of this life is like the flower of the grass ; although 
its bloom is brighter it will sooner die. Your life may 
survive a few years as a flowerless stalk ; but it is neither 
much courted by others nor much enjoyed by yourself, 
after its ornaments have one by one dropped off. 

When this active limb grows feeble, have I no other 
support ? When the beauty of the flesh grows ghastly, 
have I nothing fair to look upon ? When this tabernacle 
is decajdng, have I no mansion prepared in the Father's 
house ? It is a fearful thing to be driven out of this life 
before you have obtained another. The saddest case is 
perhaps the commonest ; to be so oppressed by disease, 
or so callous by habit, that you permit death to close upon 
you and jostle you out of the only life you have, without 
either a beam of hope or a cry of anguish. 

It is not after the storm has arisen, or the telegraph 
has reported that his ship has struck, that the merchant 
runs to insure his goods. He effects the insurance while 
the sun is shining and the air calm ; he effects the 
insurance before the ship has cleared from the dock, or at 
all events before she has left the river. Go and do 
likewise, living, but dying men ! Now is the accepted 
time ; to-day, according to the true testimony of his 
adversaries, " This man receiveth sinners." God with us 
is waiting ; still his terms are, "Whosoever will." To-day 
you may enter into life ; to-morrow the door may be 
shut. 



So6 LIVING FAITH A WOKKING FAITH. 

xxiy. 

LIVING FAITH A WORKING FAITH. 

" For as tlie body witlioiit the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead 
also,"— James ii. 26. 

With a view to the exposition and application of this 
text, we shall endeavour to exhibit, — 

I. The errors which it opposes. 
II. The doctrines which it teaches. 
III. The practical lessons which it suggests. 

I. The errors which it opposes. The covenant of 
mercy, although framed before the fall, was revealed after 
it. The Bible is not so old as sin. Error came first, 
and truth followed it. A daring rebel rose in a portion 
of the sovereign's dominions, and a force was sent to 
discover and destroy him ; the position, magnitude, and 
character of the insurrection, determine the dispositions 
of the royal army which has been commissioned to put 
it down. Thus, error that sprung up on earth has 
determined the form of the truth that invades it from 
heaven. 

The mould and the thing moulded on it, are in one 
sense similar to each other, and in another opposite. The 
mould communicates its own form to the liquid metal 
which is poured in, and yet the moulded figure, when 



LIVING FAITH A WORKING FAITH. 357 

complete, is precisely the reverse of that which formed it. 
Every hollow in the receiving matrix leaves a protuber- 
ance on the vessel which is cast. It is thus that revealed 
truth takes its shape from pre-existing error, although the 
truth so framed is, feature by feature, the opposite of 
the error from which it received its form. Into every 
hollow of the pre-existing falsehood ran the search- 
ing outpoured truth ; and, corresponding to every deep 
lie of Satan, stands ultimately out an opposing solid truth 
from God. The deeper and wider the yawning pit of 
lies, the stronger and higher towers the truth antago- 
nist. 

It is thus both in the main Principle and in the 
subordinate Details. 

In its leading principle the salvation revealed followed 
the form of the loss previously sustained. The pliant 
remedy went round the disease, and came out its like, 
and yet its opposite. The serpent bruised the woman's 
seed ; the woman's seed therefore bruised the serpent. 
The tempter closed with the first Adam, and the embrace 
was death to man ; the second Adam closed v^dth the 
tempter, and the embrace was death to man's great foe. 
As by man came death, so also by man came the resur- 
rection from the dead. Condemnation was first, and 
stood alone triumphant : salvation came afterwards, and 
fastened on the foe, and closed all round, and overcame. 
Emerging from the strife victorious, salvation appeared 
in the form which it got in those fires. The truth which 
the Bible contains was, in its essence, prior to all error 
and sin, for error is originally a deviation from eternal 



858 LIVING FAITH A WORKING FAITH. 

truth ; but the Bible which brings the truth to us, has 
been shaped upon falsehood its foe. 

The same rule holds good when you descend to the 
specific features of revelation. Even the sayings of Jesus 
often took their shape from the cavils of devils or wicked 
men. It is an instructive exercise to read the evangeli- 
cal history from this point of view. Large portions of 
the record consist of conversations : the sayings of 
proud Pharisees, or scoffing Sadducees, or weak disciples, 
or tyrant rulers, alternate with the sayings of Jesus, as 
hill and valley alternate in a landscape. When self- 
righteousness, or malice, or blasphemy, spurt up from an 
evil heart of unbehef, he gently covers it with saving 
truth. Thus the wild fires in the heart of the earth 
threw up the hills and mountain ranges ; then the rain 
and sun came down from heaven, and clothed their jagged 
sides with verdure. All unfit were these internal fires 
to make a green ?vnd growing world ; and yet their wild 
npheavings were permitted, and employed to give that 
variety to the earth's surface, on which both its beauty 
and fertility so largely depend. Those outbursts of sin 
which the evangelic histories record, could not by them- 
selves have done any good to men ; but they became the 
occasion of drawing from Jesus a corresponding opposing 
covering truth, which lies upon them yet, yielding in 
abundance the bread of life to our own generation. 

The operation and eff'ect of this principle may be seen 
in the teaching of the two apostles, James and Paul, 
regarding faith. Had the errors of those days been of 
another cast, the truth on that subject would have 



LIVING FAITH A WORKING FAITH. 859 

descended to us in a different form. Each strong pro- 
jecting truth about faith, that stands out in the apostolic 
epistles, received its shape by going into the dark recesses 
of error, — the depths of Satan as they then existed in 
the world : the true doctrine, when cooled and solidified 
for preservation through all time, was found to have 
taken its form from the manifold deceits that prevailed 
among men, when that doctrine flowed warm and new 
from the Spirit of God through the apostles' lips. 

More particularly the two main features of faith, as 
represented in the Scriptures — the two feet on which it 
stands secure — have been moulded in two deep pits which 
Satan had prepared for the destruction of men. The two 
errors regarding faith were contrary to each other, 
and yet both alike were contrary to truth. The one 
despised living faith as unnecessary ; the other exalted 
dead faith as sufficient. This heretic laboured on what 
he called obedience, and held that thereby he might 
be justified ; that heretic professed faith, and thought 
he might thereby be relieved from the pain and 
trouble of a strict obedience. The Legalist and the 
Antinomian stand on opposite extremes, equally distant 
from the truth that saves. Both put asunder the two 
whom God has joined, and the severance is death to the 
severed : as well might you expect the right and left 
sides of a human being to live and act after they are 
separated by a sword. The works of the Legalist are dead 
for want of faith ; the faith of the Antinomian dead for 
want of works. These two deep pits, so situated, give 
form and position to the two main pillars of the truth. 



360 LIVING FAITH A WORKING FAITH. 

The errors being opposite are mutually intolerant of 
each other : the two pits are dug on opposite sides 
of the right path, and the same traveller cannot fall 
into both at the same time. The adversary goeth 
about seeking whom he may devour, and how he 
may devour them. Persons of one character and 
tendency lean to the right ; persons of another cha- 
racter and tendency lean to the left : for either a snare 
is set. 

As the errors are opposite, the same enunciation of 
truth is not fitted to subvert both. The truths that will 
meet and match these lies are in an important sense the 
opposite of each other. The errors, though opposite, are 
both errors, and the truths, though in a subordinate sense 
opposite, are both truths. 

Two separate witnesses have been chosen and called 
to give evidence against these two errors, and enunciate 
the corresponding counteracting truths. Paul deals with 
one of the adversaries, and James with the other. The 
two boldest leaders are sent against the two main divi- 
sions of the foe : Paul meets the Legalist who trusts in 
his own righteousness and tells him, By faith a man is 
justified, and not by the works of the law : James meets 
the Antinomian who thinks obedience unnecessary, and 
tells liim. By works a man is justified and not by faith 
only. Thus saving truth is flanked on either side by 
two strong towers, as sentinels on the two chief ap- 
proaches to her citadel ; and the divine wisdom and good- 
ness are manifest in this, that while the defensive truths 
are posted there to repel assailing errors, those errors 



LIVING FAITH A WORKING FAITH. 861 

"were the means of drawing out the truth in those lines, 
and casting it into those forms of strength, 

Paul insisting on faith only, and James on works also, 
stand not face to face fighting against each other, but 
back to back fighting opposite foes : they are both on 
the same side, although for the time they look and strike 
in opposite directions. Paul's argument is not truth at 
rest, exhibiting her countenance in full ; but truth in con- 
flict with the heresy of legalism. In like manner, the 
argument of James in our text gives not a portrait in 
full; but a glimpse of truth in the act of doing battle with 
the Antinomian heresy. In that combat you see one 
side, and in this another, of the same truth. A Confession 
is like a picture in which the face of faith appears full, 
but still ; with all its features in view, but none of them 
in motion : the Bible, on the contrary, is the real battle- 
field where living warriors fight. Various and ever- 
shifting are the attitudes of the combatants : in the 
mazes and evolutions of the fight some of them seem at 
times to be arrayed against their comrades; but they are 
only pursuing to extremities certain divisions of the foe, 
and fully executing each his own portion of the great 
Captain s plan. Neither the argument of Paul concerning 
faith, nor the argument of James concerning works, could 
be inserted in a Confession. The Confession, being only a 
picture, must hang stiff and motionless on the wall ; but 
in the Bible the soldiers, fighting against heterogeneous, 
ever-shifting hosts, and under the eye of their living Head, 
exhibit a freedom of movement which is not possible in 
any representation. When the strife is over and the 



362 LIVING FAITH A WORKING FAITH. 

victory won, Paul and James will stand side by side 
before the Captain of their salvation, and receive in com- 
mon the same award: Well done, good and faithful 
soldiers, enter ye into the joy of your Lord. 

The errors with which these two apostles were respec- 
tively called to deal were very diverse, and consequently 
the same treatment was not suitable for both. The con- 
test in Paul's argument lay between faith and something 
else as its rival in the justification of the sinful; the con- 
test in the argument of James lay between two different 
kinds of faith. The first battle is fought by Paul : he con- 
tends against all comers, that a sinner can be justified only 
through faith in the righteousness of Christ. Then appears 
James, and carries the question a stage further, insisting 
that only one particular species of faith can justify, to the 
exclusion of spurious kinds which usurp the same name. 

Paul divides the whole world into two : those who seek 
to be justified before God through faith in Christ ; and 
those who trust in other appliances. He then tells off as 
on the right side those who cling to faith, and sets aside 
all the rest as errorists. Observe, now, it is the divisioii 
whom Paul has pronounced right, and that division only, 
with whom James deals. He addresses not those who 
denied Paul's doctrine of faith, but those who accepted 
and professed it. Paul's test decided the soundness of 
the profession : James throws in among the sound another 
solvent whicli precipitates a quantity of dark and fetid 
grounds. His question is : Assuming that you all 
acknowledge faith, is your faith living or dead? The 
orthodox, like Gideon's army, after having been greatly 



LIVING FAITH A WORKING FAITH. 863 

diminished in numbers by one test, must be still further 
reduced by another. Of those who confessed the doctrine 
that a man is justified by faith alone, some were regene- 
rated, and some still remained carnal. The creatures 
acted nob after their name, but after their kind. Some 
who professed the true faith served the Lord that bought 
them in newness of life; others who professed the true 
faith, thinking that their profession would shield them 
from punishment, gave themselves over to the pleasures 
of sin. For the conviction of these self-deceivers, the 
apostle James proves by his deciding word, that faith Avith- 
out obedience is dead, and that dead faith does not save. 

II. The doctrines which it teaches. 

Here we must, in the first place, endeavour to ascer- 
tain the meaning of the remarkable figure which is em- 
ployed in the text. Some persons affect to despise ana- 
logies from nature as a means of fixing and elucidating 
religious truth. Perhaps these same persons may in the 
next breath have occasion to speak of a backslider, and 
may speak to good purpose about his sin ; but, in so 
doing, they are unconsciously employing an analogy from 
matter to explain a strictly spiritual thing. Slide back ! 
nothing more likely when you attempt to climb a steep 
ascent, where the ground is slippery ; but a soul does not 
slide on a miry road ! No ; it is a strong figure of speech, 
in which nature is laid under contribution for the pur- 
poses of grace. If you refuse such analogies you may shut 
both your Bible and your shop. They are necessary both in 
religious instruction and in the intercourse of common life. 



S6-i LIVING FAITH A WORKING FAITH. 

A handle is borrowed from nature, that by its help we 
may more firmly grasp this spiritual and unseen thing. 
In the structure of the analogy Body corresponds to Faith, 
and Spirit to Works. On a general view of the whole 
subject we would rather expect the reverse : to make 
faith stand for the living principle within, and works for 
the body which it animates, is a true and obvious analogy : 
for some purposes it would be the more appropriate of the 
two. It would have suited Paul's purpose when his aim 
was to show that works were nothing without faith ; but 
it did not suit the purpose of James when he was showing 
conversely, that faith, so called, without obedience is a 
worthless name. It is as true that works are the life of 
faith, as that faith is the life of works. As action in a 
body is the effect and evidence of a living spirit within, 
so a holy obedience to the will of God is the substantial 
proof that the faith which a man professes is a living 
and not a dead faith. The question here lies not between 
faith and obedience, but between a true and a spurious 
faith ; works are put forward, not as a substitute for faith, 
but as a test of its genuineness. It is an application to 
this particular case of the Lord's own rule. By their fruits 
ye shaU know them. 

Let us now look, in the light of this principle, to some 
of the leading links in the chain of the apostle's argu- 
ment ; and for this purpose we shaU find a sufiicient 
number of examples within the bounds of the same chap- 
ter. 

1 . At verse 1 ; " My brethren, have not the faith of 
our Lord Jesus, the Lord of glory, with respect of per- 



LIVING FAITH A WOEKING FAITH. 365 

sons." He is beginning a course of practical lessons, but he 
gives them as the proper accompaniments and consequents 
of faith. James as well as Paul starts with faith in 
Jesus as the first and chief; but he proceeds to explain 
what fruits it ought to bear. Assuming that faith is the 
first, his question is, What graces of the Spirit go " with '■* 
it ? He proposes certain lovely virtues, such as humility, 
self-sacrifice, and brotherly love, not as substitutes, but 
as companions for faith. 

2. Verse 14; " What doth it profit, my brethren, 
though a man say he hath faith, and have not works?'' 
Here he does not say that faith is profitless ; but that it 
is profitless for a man to " say " he has faith, while 
his conduct shows that his profession is false. Neither 
here nor anywhere else does James set aside faith as 
worthless ; that which he denounces is a spurious imita- 
tion. Downright earnestness in detecting the false is the 
natural counterpart of a high value for the true. 

3. Yerse 20 ; " Faith without works is dead.'' It is 
liere neither expressed nor implied that works will jus- 
tify the doer, while faith will not justify the believer ; he 
only reiterates the former assertion that barren faith is 
dead, and dead faith is worthless. 

4. Yerse 24 ; "Not by faith only." As explained by 
the whole context his meaning is. Not by a fruitless faith. 
A faith that stands alone does not justify, for it is a 
dead faith. 

With reference to all these examples, bear in mind 
that the apostle is straining with his whole bent to stimu- 
late idle professors into a life of positive holiness. There 



366 LIVING FAITH A WOEKING FAITIf. 

is no debate here about the person of the Saviour, or his 
work for sinners ; there is no question as to any doctrine 
of the gospel. Between the parties to this dispute all the 
truth was held in common. James is not dealing with 
infidels to induce them to believe in Christ, but with be- 
lievers to urge them to active usefulness. 

In the earliest and strugghng period of the Christian 
Church hypocrisy was comparatively rare : the only 
requisite for admission into communion was assent to the 
truth. So great were the obstacles in those days, that 
profession was most difficult, and therefore, generally, 
profession came last. In these circumstances, assent 
might be held as sufficient evidence ; but when profes- 
sion became easy, it came first, and often came alone. It 
is against this tendency, already in his time begun, that 
James contends ; if we do not discover and remember his 
aim, we shall miss his meaning ; if we do not take our 
stand on his view-point, we shall not appreciate the pic- 
ture which he has drawn. 

III. The practical lessons which the text suggests. 
Both in its doctrinal and its practical aspect the text is 
obviously and emphatically one-sided : it does not give 
all the doctrines and all the precepts Avhich bear a rela- 
tion to the subject. It is not a treatise on theology, but 
a vigorous stroke for actual holiness. It is the sudden, 
self-forgetting rush of a good soldier of Jesus Christ, not 
directly against the opposing ranks of the enemy to drive 
them in, but against the diverging columns of his own 
friends, to direct their line of march into the path of 



LIVING FAITH A WOEKING FAITH. 367 

safety. If readers and expounders would consent to carry 
this key in their hands, it would go far to solve the 
difficulties which this portion of Scripture presents. If 
you expect to find here all truth, or even both sides of 
one truth categorically stated in the manner of a Con- 
fession, you will be disappointed ; but take it as it is 
obviously given, — a sharp, fearless blow, dealt by one who 
loves a specific doctrine of grace against a deforming ex- 
crescence which human hands, unskilful and unclean, 
were busily gluing to its beauteous side, and you will 
find it profitable specially for correction in righteous- 
ness. 

The main lesson is. An orthodox profession will not 
save an unconverted, unsanctified man. So much of the 
application has already been embodied in the exposition, 
that to enforce this lesson now in detail would lead to 
much unnecessary repetition. Accordingly, while we set 
it here in its proper place, we shall confine it within 
narrow limits. 

We learn from the text, then, that besides those who posi- 
tively refuse to receive the gospel, some lie under con- 
demnation who acquiesce in its truth and profess to 
believe. On the surface of the world and the church 
lie many who are called Christians, and yet are not 
Christ's. A correct opinion will not waft to heaven a 
carnal mind. When a breeze blows on a bed of growing 
willows, all heads bend gracefully; not one resists. But 
it costs the willows nothing to yield ; and when the wind 
changes, you may see them all pointing the other way. 
Behold the picture of smooth, hollow, unreal faith ! We 



868 - LIVING FAITH A WORKING FAITH. 

learn regarding a certain ancient church, from the testi- 
mony of the " true Witness," that they had a name that 
they lived while they were dead; and the same species 
of Christianity abounds in the present day. 

The outward frame of faith, although correct and 
complete, is a body dead, if it have not love within, and 
break not forth in righteousness. In nature, the higher 
animal organizations are, as a general rule, more noisome 
in death than the lower. The more perfect the body is 
while living, the more vile it becomes when it is dead. 
Faith — the system of revealed truth taken from the Bible, 
and lying accepted in a human understanding — is a 
glorious body; but this body dead is in God's sight most 
loathsome. There is no sight on this world so displeasing 
to the Holy One, as the profession of trust in Christ with- 
out a panting and straining after conformity to his image. 

Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him 
for righteousness ; but Abraham's faith was a hving, and 
therefore a bearing and doing faith. What is your faith 
doing ? It is not our doing that will be our justifying 
righteousness in the great da}^ ; but it is a doing faith, 
and not a dead one, that unites a believer to Christ and 
so saves him. It is not the activity of a believer that 
recommends him to the Judge as righteous ; but it is an 
active believing that makes Christ's righteousness his. 
Said Jesus, to his faUen and restored disciple in one 
of his latest interviews, ''Simon, son of Jonas, lovest 
thou me?" "Yea, Lord," replied Peter, "thou knowest all 
things, and thou knowest that I love thee," (John xxi.) 
There is a noble confession ; will it suffice ? No, if it be 



LIVING FAITH A WORKING FAITH. 369 

dead; and it is dead if it remain alone. Here are tlie 
fruits which must flow from its life, and prove that it is 
living: "Follow thou me ;" " Feed my sheep;'' "Feed my 
lambs." If Peter's faith be living, it will do these com- 
mandments ; his faith, by uniting him to Christ, saves 
him ; and these works are the life of his faith in 
exercise. When a disciple is "rooted in him" (Col. ii. 7), 
the more fruit that his life produces, the deeper his faith 
strikes down for support into the riches of redeeming 
love ; as the living tree must penetrate farther into the 
sustaining earth for every increase in the area of its fruit- 
bearing branches. 



2 A 



370 I AM DEBTOK. 

XXV. 
I AM DEBTOR. 

" I am debtor both to the Greeks and to the BarhariaDS^ both to the wise and 
to the unwise." — Eom. i, 14. 

This text raises a question on each of three points which, 
in mercantile phraseology, would be designated — The 
Business, the Debt, and the Composition. 

I. The Business: the nature, sphere, and extent of 
the trade in which his talents were laid out and his 
capital invested. 

II. The Debt : how, with whom, and to what extent he 
had become involved. 

III. The Composition: in what manner and to what 
amount the insolvent proposed to pay. 

We shall consider these three in their order, drawing 
our doctrines exclusively from the Scripture, but applying 
them freely to ourselves and our circumstances as we go 
along. 

I. The Business : the nature, sphere, and extent of the 
trade in which his talents were laid out and his capital 
invested. 

A merchant, whose capital and credit are embarked in 
an extensive foreign trade, has gradually fallen into the 



I AM DEBTOR. ' S7l 

habit of doing business also, in a great variety of articles 
and a great number of petty transactions, with his 
nearest neighbours at home. The law which reigns 
majestically among the heavenly bodies soon shows itself 
paramount also in this terrestrial sphere ; a smaller body 
near attracts more powerfully than a larger at a distance. 
The home trade of this merchant is so small, that though 
all its receipts were profits, it would not feed his famity ; 
but it is near, and therefore occupies his time and atten- 
tion much more than in proportion to its worth. Coming 
personally, on this field, into contact with every customer, 
he insensibly contracts a passion for dealing in small 
bargains with every passenger on the wayside. So keen 
has his appetite become for this species of stimulant that 
he has lost the faculty of taking an enlarged view, and 
perceiving the insignificance of the aggregate results. He 
will higgle an hour with a neighbour for a penny, and 
spend a day in catering for orders which will scarcely add 
a shilling to his balance. His heart is in the business, 
and into it, accordingly, must time and talents go : the 
remonstrances of reason within, and of friends without, 
go for nothing. In the meantime rumours are rife that, 
in one foreign market prices had suddenly fallen before 
his goods arrived; that in another his agents had sold his 
cargo and absconded with the proceeds; and that in a 
third direction an investment, not insured, had been lost 
at sea. He declines to examine these reports, not be- 
cause he is sure they are false, but because he does not 
like the subject. He will not even look into the books 
of his great foreign trade, because a secret, uncomfortable 



372 I AM DEBTOR. 

presentiment lurks about his heart that the business is 
not in a prosperous state. To discover that all his 
capital is gone, and bankruptcy impending, would be un- 
pleasant, and therefore he indefinitely postpones the day 
of balancing ; but to keep his mind free from these 
painful reflections, he throws himself with redoubled 
energy into his huckstering, and exults over the pence or 
half-pence of profit which each transaction produces. 

The man is mad, you say : he is ; but probably " thou 
art the man." 

We are all merchants. We have business with both 
worlds ; but our stake in the one is slight, in the other 
all but infinite. 

It becomes a practical question of the deepest import- 
ance to every one of us, whether we distribute our at- 
tention between these two in due proportion to their 
comparative worth. Alas, there are many foolish traders 
amongst us who seem to pour out their souls in anxiety 
about the balance of their accounts for time, and leave 
the interests of their own eternity to sink or swim. 

This petty trade is in its own place lawful, necessary, 
and salutar}^; it is neither our interest nor our duty to 
abandon it. The sin and danger lie not in mastering our 
temporal afiairs, but in allowing them to master us : they 
are good servants, but bad masters. Looking to its sphere, 
and extent, and returns, this retail traffic at our door is 
not worth so much care as is generally devoted to it. It 
does not run so deep as to justify a very absorbing study, 
a very ardent devotion. Although you succeed in it, you 
cannot gain much; although you fail in it, you cannot 



I AM DEBTOR. 373 

lose much. A house by the way of larger or smaller 
dimensions, covering for the body more or less elegant, 
food more or less sumptuous to satisfy hunger, — these, 
and a few others of minor moment constitute all the 
stake that any of us have in our trade with the present 
world. In the trade with heaven we have a deeper 
interest: pardon of sin and peace with God, a new heart 
and a holy life, a glorious resurrection and a life eternal, 
— these are the treasures which may be lost or won by 
the indolence or enterprise of dying yet immortal 
merchantmen. The loss of the larger venture would 
swamp all the gains of time : although the gain should 
amount to a whole world, the loss of the soul would turn 
the balance to the other side. 

Paul was a diligent and energetic man. Had he been 
a merchant, the keenest wit in all the Exchange could not 
have over-reached him. He closely examined the worth 
of an article, and nicely calculated how much it would 
bring. He embarked all in one business, and then pushed 
it to the uttermost. He did not neglect the necessary 
and lawful affairs of this life, but his treasure was in 
heaven, and his heart followed it. News from the far 
country, where his wealth lay, came like cold water to 
his thirsting soul. Sometimes, while he was waiting 
anxiously, a kind of secret telegraphic message reached his 
heart, intimating that in the hands of his Advocate with 
the Father his affairs were prospering ; — that his invest- 
ment was safe, and his venture successful ; — that already 
it had secured godliness, a great gain for the present, and 
for reversion in the future, a crown of glory. 



874^ I AM DEBTOR. 

II. The Debt ; how, with whom, and to what extent 
he had become involved. He was diligent in his business; 
and yet was not able to pay his way. This demands 
inquiry. 

However good the position of some may be in regard 
to the material interests of the present world, it is certain 
that in their greatest business all men begin in debt. It 
is an unpropitious starting point. There is nothing in 
the commencement to warrant or excuse subsequent ne- 
glect. We inherit a debt which no actual efforts of our 
own ca.n ever discharge. 

Some heirs would fain get quit of their heritage. 
When a man discovers that the property which has fallen 
to him is burdened, not only bej^ond its own worth, but 
beyond the worth of all that he possesses, or can ever 
hope to win, he tries to shake off the encumbrance, but 
fails. He has laid hold of it, and it has laid hold of him. 
If there were any hope of success, he might lay his mind 
to his lot, and strive by industry to diminish gradually his 
burden; but if the debt is obviously so great that, in 
spite of all his efforts, its amount will grow greater every 
year, he will lose heart and relapse into indolence. The 
discovery that the case is hopeless cuts the sinews of ex- 
ertion, and the man abandons himself to his fate. 

Such is the condition of men in relation to God. We 
are born with a debt; and when we come to the years 
of understanding, we find out that the capital of that 
debt has increased during our minority. When we be- 
come more skilful in examining the accounts, we discover 
that the amount of our liabilities, instead of being dimi- 



I AM DEBTOR. 875 

nislied, is still increasing day by day. The law, meantime, is 
laying its awful hand upon the trembler, and dragging 
him toward the judgment-seat of God : " The soul that 
sinneth, it shall die." 

In this extremity our help was laid upon a mighty 
One. A daysman came in between the Judge and the 
guilty, laying his hand upon both. The Son of God, in 
the covenant, took our nature, and bare his people's sin. 
He suffered, the just for the unjust. He paid the debt, 
and bestowed the righteousness; '' There is therefore now 
no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.'' The 
handwriting that was against them is blotted out : the 
bond is cancelled, and they are free. 

The forgiven sinner is clear in the book of God's judg- 
ment ; there is absolutely nothing standing against him 
there ; he may hold up his head at the last great tribunal 
as confidently as the angels who never sinned. The 
Mediator took his sins, and he has obtained the Mediator's 
righteousness. In that righteousness he is " without spot 
and blameless;" but it is self-evident that although he 
is now out of debt, he is still indebted. Although he 
owes nothing to the law, he owes much to that Eedeemer 
who bore its curse for him : he owes himself, and his 
eternal life, to Christ. He is as deeply in debt as ever, 
but it is of another kind, and due to another creditor. 
It is now the debt of gratitude, and he owes it to 
Christ. It is greater than the man can ever pay ; 
but its magnitude is no burden. The more he realizes 
its greatness, the happier he grows. The apostolic 
precept regarding debt in human transactions, " Owe 



8 7-6 I AM DEBTOR. 

no man anything, but to love one another," seems 
to have been borrowed from the relation between the 
saint and his Saviour. In excluding all other kinds of 
debt, the precept makes an exception in favour of one, 
leaving it to be inferred that the more of it the better. 
The one thing which man should owe to man is love ; 
and love is the debt which the redeeemed owe to their 
Eedeemer. It is not the same thing that they owe now, 
nor to the same creditor. Formerly, they owed to the 
law a perfect righteousness; and because they were hope- 
lessly insolvent, the relations between the creditor and 
the debtors were of the angriest kind. The hatred was 
deep, and it was reciprocal. That debt was like a burn- 
ing fire ; but the debt which the forgiven owe to their 
divine substitute, now that they are free, is totally differ- 
ent in its nature and effects. They owe all to Christ; 
and to him they owe only love. The amount of the debt 
is, indeed, to them as good as infinite, and immeasurably 
beyond all hope of payment in full ; but, strange to say, 
that characteristic which is a sting of torment in other 
debts, makes this debt unspeakably delightful. When 
the debt is love, and that due to the Son of God, our 
Saviour, its sweetness lies in its exhaustless depth. After 
the debtor has paid all that he was worth during a long 
life, the debt, instead of being reduced in amount, will 
be found to have grown greater. It is this that makes 
the debtor glad. If it were possible that at any period 
of futurity he should owe less of love to Christ, his joy 
would be marred. He is a new creature now, and in a 
new condition. His new condition is, in many respects. 



I AM DEBTOR. 377 

the opposite of the old; and especially in this, that 
whereas the greatness of his debt of obedience to the law- 
constituted his chief misery, the greatness of his debt of 
love to Christ constitutes the chief element of his content- 
ment. Here the tender word of Jesus holds true in the 
experience of his people : " My yoke is easy, and my 
burden is light/' 

Thus far all is plain. Paul was a debtor to Christ — • 
that we can understand; but here he confesses that he 
is a debtor to the Greeks and to the Barbarians, to the 
wise and to the unwise, — that is, to every nation under 
heaven, and to all classes in each. He intimates that he 
is a debtor to every hum^an being, without respect to 
country, character, or condition in life. How comes this? 
Those Greeks and Barbarians had never done him any 
good ; some of them had done him as much injury as 
they were able ; yet he was labouring night and day to 
serve them, and exclaiming after he had done his bes.t 
that he owed them still more. 

In the complicated processes of modern merchandise, a 
man often finds himself in debt to persons whom he 
never saw, and with whom he never had any deahngs. 
It occurs in this manner : you have engaged in a series 
of transactions with a merchant at a distance, and the 
result is a pecuniary balance to a greater or less extent in 
his favour ; while in another series of transactions in which 
he is engaged with another party, the balance is against 
him. With a view to the convenience both of himself 
and his correspondent, instead of getting money from you, 
and paying money to his creditor, he hands over to 



878 I AM DEBTOR. 

that creditor the claim which he holds against you. 
Or, to make the analogy more complete, you may sup- 
pose that the merchant to whom you owe a sum of 
money, desires to help certain destitute persons in your 
city, and to them makes over the bill as an equivalent 
for money. The person who possesses that claim so 
transferred, whether the merchant or the pauper, presents 
it for payment at your desk, and you must pay. You 
cannot repudiate : the law wiU enforce the demand in full. 
Thus you become debtors to persons whom you never saw. 

Thus Paul became a debtor to the Greeks and Bar- 
barians of his own day. He owed all that he possessed, 
and himself besides, to Christ his Redeemer. But he 
could not directly pay any part of that debt ; a man's 
goodness cannot reach to God. He is not on that account 
absolved from the duty of paying : the Lord to whom 
he owes all has transferred his claim to the poor, and 
Paul is bound to honour it. Paul cannot reach the 
treasury of heaven to pay his instalments there ; Paul's 
great Creditor, therefore, makes the debt payable on earth; 
offices are open everywhere to receive it. Wherever 
there is a creature of the same flesh and blood with our- 
selves in want, spiritual or temporal, or both combined, 
there a legal claim is presented to the disciples of Christ ; 
and if the}^ repudiate, they dishonour their Lord. 

This principle is exhibited with marvellous clearness 
and fulness in the story of the woman with the alabaster 
box of ointment, as recorded in Mark xiv. 3-9. The 
woman's ardent and profuse devotion to Christ in his 
own person gives occasion to some ignorant, selfish 



I AM DEBTOR. S79 

observers to set up the claim of alms-giving co the poor, 
as against devotion to the Lord. These two together — 
the act and the adverse criticism of it — drew forth from 
the great Teacher's own lips a lesson which is authorita- 
tive to his disciples in all time coming. 

The root and life of true religion is personal devotion 
to a personal Redeemer ; thereafter and thereon grows 
active service in his cause. The first is the heart's devo- 
tion to the Lord ; the second is the hand's work upon 
the world. These are the first and second commandments 
of the New Testament decalogue. Neither of these 
two can thrive alone : every attempt to separate them 
ends in some mischievous hypocrisy. Devotion without 
work degenerates into monkery ; work without devotion 
sinks into a shallow, fitful secularism. The woman 
lavished on the Lord a devotion which in due time would 
have borne fruits of charity ; the men who found fault 
with her proposed charity instead of devotion. Christ 
sanctioned the woman's deed, and reproved the objectors. 
He accepted the personal homage ; but he did not put it 
in place of kindness to the poor. He permitted the well 
to open in love to himself, and then, on retiring, left the 
poor in his place permanently to receive the flow. Me 
ye have not always : Ye have the poor with you always. 
He asserted his own rights, and then transferred them 
to the needy. To himself by redeeming love he draws 
forth the legacy; and then, ascending into heaven, leaves 
the poor his heirs. 

The woman's impetuous, profuse adoration, and the 
men's dry, carping, utilitarian proposal to turn the ointment 



380 I AM DEBTOR 

into cash, lie before us like the pair of pictures, taken 
from different view points, which either separately or 
conjointly have scarcely any meaning to the unaided eye : 
the word of Jesus lays them in the stereoscope, and on 
the instant, out of the two dim, unintelligible pictures, 
starts one beautiful, deeply-relieved, life-like truth : On 
Christ to whom they owe themselves, Christians are pouring 
out their precious offerings ; and these are all falling into the 
lap of the poor, whom he at his ascension left in his place. 

It is thus that we become debtors to every needy brother 
of the human family. If we have gotten mercy from 
Christ, we owe mercy to men. Whatever may be the 
form of the effort, whether a contribution in money or 
a personal visit to the poor ; whether the aim for the 
time be to enlighten the soul or satisfy the body ; whether 
the field of operation be at home or abroad ; when a 
Christian acts, and suffers, and gives for the good of men, 
he is not entitled to comphments for generosity ; he is 
paying a debt. If he refused to pay it, he would be a 
dishonest man. 

Nor does the world's apathy release a Christian from 
his obligations. If a company of very poor people held 
a claim against a citizen for a large sum of money ; and 
if he should take advantage of their ignorance and poverty 
to evade the payment, he would be cast out from society 
as a dishonourable man. In like manner, although those 
who now hold Christ's claim on us, not knowing its value, 
do not present it for payment, we are bound in honour 
to seek them out and discharge our obligations. Chris- 
tians owe more to the poor than they can ever pay. 



I AM DEBTOR. 881 

When they have done all they are unprofitable servants, 
The opportunity of being generous does not lie within 
their reach : when their aim rises highest they are 
only striving to be just. 

III. The Composition ; in what manner, and to what 
amount the insolvent proposed to pay. 

Let it be carefully observed here at the outset, that 
the most devoted life of a saved man is not offered as 
an adequate return to the Saviour. As well might he 
purchase his pardon at first from the Judge, as repay the 
Eedeemer for it afterwards. He pays, not in the spirit 
of bondage, but in the spirit of grateful love ; not that 
he looks to a time when the debt will be paid ofi*, but 
that he delights in the act of paying it. Having announced 
his principle, the apostle, as his manner was, plunged at 
once into its practical details; verse 15, "So, as much 
as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that 
are at Rome also." 

No further exposition of the doctrines seems necessary 
now, and the way is clear for applying them directly 
to our own circumstances. Adopting the order which is 
at once natural and scriptural, we shall suggest first some 
instalments of the debt that are due to parties at home, 
and then some that are due to parties abroad. 

1. At Home. It is not necessary that the debtors 
should go far away, in order to find a person authorized 
to receive the payments as they become due. The 
original creditor has secured that properly qualified 
receivers should be at hand ; both in the crowded centres 



38 2 I AjVI debtoe. 

of population and the bleak outskirts of the country, are 
multitudes to whom Christians are deeply in debt. Our 
master has supplied us with an unerring formula for 
determining in every case the validity of the claim : 
"Love one another as I have loved you.'' Discover 
what claim you had on Christ, and that is the claim 
which a needy brother has on you. Your only claim on 
the Redeemer's love was your wretchedness ; you had 
no goodness to constitute a right, and your wickedness 
did not shut you out from his mercy. Wherever, there- 
fore, there is a human being in wretchedness within your 
reach, to that human being you are a debtor ; and you 
are bound to pay as far as your means will go ; behold 
the open spring of all home-mission effort ! It has been 
observed that when certain reformatory institutions, which 
at first were supported by voluntary contributions, were 
transferred to a tax imposed on the community by imperial 
authority, the difiiculties of the managers disappeared, 
and the coffers were kept full. Ah, the treasury of 
missions would be always charged, if the authority of 
Christ's kingdom were as effective in the hearts of Chris- 
tians, as that of the government on the means and sub- 
stance of the citizens. 

But though we refer to pecuniary revenue for the 
purpose of illustration, let it not be supposed that it is in 
money only or chiefly that Christians should pay their 
debt : if we pay only in money, we do not pay at all. 
Personal service is the legal tender, and it is only to a 
limited extent and in certain circumstances that money 
may be received as an equivalent. Personal dealing with 



I AM DEBTOR. 388 

persons is the law of Christ's kingdom, and the liking of 
its subjects, when they are in a quickened state. This 
is the need of our day ; this is the direction in which an 
advance should be sought. It is a conspicuous charac- 
teristic of present revivals, that converts are brought 
more consciously and more closely into personal com- 
munion with the Lord Jesus ; this is doubtless designed, 
in the Spirit's administration, to increase the number and 
the energy of those who go down into the world and 
grapple, person with person, to bring the lost to the 
Saviour. When Christ is closer to Christians, Christians 
will come closer to the world. When every member of 
the Church shall feel debt to Christ pressing like hunger 
at his heart, and the work of winning souls like the food 
which satisfies it, the kingdom of God will advance with 
rapid strides across the world ; these waters issuing from the 
sanctuary, which now trickle scarcely seen beneath the 
grass, will speedily become "waters to swim in" (Ezek. xlvii.) 
Poor Ireland ! Loud complaints are uttered against 
certain sections of her population, — sections which the re- 
cent revival has scarcely reached, — how they settle on our 
shores, and inoculate the inhabitants with their super- 
stition and their crimes. With a mixture of impatience 
and levity, it is sometimes said that to dip Ireland for a 
day beneath the sea would be an effectual cure. It 
would, — even as to have dipped this world into hell 
would have rid God's beautiful work of the spots that 
defiled it. God did not so treat ns ; for this we are 
indebted to him ; that debt he has made payable to the 
wretched v/ho partake of our common nature, whatever 



884 I AM DEBTOE. 

tbeir cliaracter and deserts may be. Here is a principle 
which would make this wilderness a garden soon. 

2. Abroad. In order to keep our illustration within 
reasonable limits, let us observe its operation on one field 
only, and that field India. The many millions of India 
are, from the Christian view-point, emphatically poor ; 
and they are " with " us in a more intimate sense than 
other heathen tribes. They are with us as they are not 
with the French or Portuguese, who once held what 
seemed a firm footing on their shores. India was taken 
from nations who have not the gospel, and given to a 
nation that has the gospel ; the providential design it is 
not difficult to perceive. But the case against this 
country for not giving the truth to India, becomes much 
stronger when we look more narrowly into the means 
by which we acquired possession. 

A rich man dies, leaving a large family of young chil- 
dren ; and another man, rich too, obtains the guardianship 
of the orphans. Partly by law and partly by violence, 
he drives ofi" all competitors, and constitutes himself sole 
trustee of the wealthy minors : he then proceeds to 
enrich himself out of the inheritance of his wards, leaving 
them scarcely enough of food to satisfy their hunger, or 
of clothing to cover them from the cold. Like the 
crowned culprit of old, this regal people would doubtless 
say, when the parable is spoken, " The man that hath 
done this thing shall surely die." Oh, for some Nathan, 
commissioned and qualified by the Almighty protector of 
the poor, to pierce this proud community with that sharp 
sword of the Spirit : " Thou art the man \" 



I AM DEBTOR. 885 

We have masterfully, not to say unjustly, ousted all 
other claimants, and assumed absolute guardianship over 
the vast populations of the Indian peninsula. We have 
enriched ourselves by the inheritance of those little 
children, and withheld from them the bread of life. One 
dreadful warning the Supreme Governor has lately given 
us; but, although there was a general confession of error 
while the danger pressed, the nation, if we judge by the 
sentiments of those who are in power, seems to be relaps- 
ing into its former dishonest indifference. As a Chris- 
tian nation we are debtors to those tribes, whether we 
count them Greeks or Barbarians, wise or unwise; and 
after all the chastisement we have endured, we still evince 
a sullen determination to evade the claim. In this crisis 
it becomes every disciple of Christ to exert all his influence 
in his own station, to infuse into the community a better 
spirit, and so constrain the rulers to desist from an enor- 
mous wrong. Let those who govern neither propagate 
idolatry nor obstruct the gospel ; and let the disciples of 
Jesus, as subjects of another kingdom, combine to pour in 
the light of life on every portion of that dreary land. 

Nor should we adopt the notion, as if it were a fixed 
principle, that the work in aU the stages of its progress, 
must be slow and gradual : the consummation may come 
sooner than we deem. Analogies, both from human art 
and from divine Providence, suggest rather the proba- 
bility, that by a slow, painful process with scarcely any 
apparent result, the crisis may be reached, and then 
the grand object, a nation's birth, be accomplished in a 
day. 

2 B 



886 I AM DEBTOR. 

The national life of India seems like a great river frozen. 
It is covered and bonnd from bank to bank by a hard, cold 
coating of superstition which has been gradually thick- 
ening throughout an uninterrupted winter of many ages. 
Having grown out of the nation's life, it has fitted itself 
on so tightly, that it seems absolutely impossible to ex- 
tricate the child from its horrid swaddling band. Christian 
instruction communicated here and there to individuals 
of the vast population, seems as ineffectual for general 
results, as an effort to melt the ice of a great river 
by touching it here and there with burning coals. But 
these puny artificial fires have nothing in common with 
our method of melting ; we depend on the sun-light, 
and call upon the God of seasons to send round quickly 
a genial spring. Yielding ourselves as his instruments, 
we strive to direct the melting rays upon the young 
sources of the great life-stream. Some swelling has al- 
ready commenced, and loud premonitory rendings have 
been heard running along the ice at various portions of 
the river's course. When, through the increasing warmth 
of spring in the fountain-heads, the body of the stream rises 
to a certain point, the long persistent ice gives way with 
a crash, and its gigantic fragments rearing and plunging 
wildly in their defeat, are borne swiftly, inexorably into 
the sea. It is strangely sweet to stand next day on 
the brink of that emancipated stream, and see it, com- 
pletely rid of the cold encumbrance which yesterday be- 
strode its body, gently rippling on the shore, and brightly 
glancing in the sunshine as it flows. 

It is more probable that the mighty superstitions of India 



I AM DEBTOR 887 

which begird and choke the life of the nation, will thus be 
hurried off in a day, than that they will keep their hold, until 
they are melted piece-meal. Perhaps we may see that con- 
summation sooner than some fainting hearts expect. 

In the meantime, it is our part to pay, from day to 
day, our debt into those hands which the Lord has com- 
missioned to receive it. We concede that these are poor, 
shrivelled hands which India stretches out, — foully stained, 
if you will, with the best of British blood; but, never- 
theless, 'tis in the bond that we should do them good. 
Whether we ought to pay into those hands, does not depend 
on their cleanness or their foulness, but upon the validity 
of the claim which they hold. Let your full, bursting 
hearts pour out their choicest treasures on the head 
that drooped dying on the cross for you,; and, as He 
does not need your fragrant ointments now, he lets 
them fall on guilty, wretched India to heal her sores. 
This is his will and way; you love it, and fall in with 
it because it is his. Behold the theory and practice of 
missions! Love to the Lord that bought us opens the 
spring and draws forth the stream; that stream, by a 
divinely imposed spiritual law, ever seeks the lowest 
place ; a Christian's compassion, like Christ's, gravitates 
downward, and fixes on those who need it most. 



388 TO HIM THAT HATH SHALL BE GIVEN: 



XXYI. 

TO HIM THAT HATH SHALL BE GIVEN :— A 
LAW OF THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 

" Whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance ; 
but whosoever hath not, from him shaU be taken away even that he hath." 
— Matt. xiii. 12. 

This remarkable saying of the Lord Jesus is, in substance, 
a generalized formula, capable of being profitably applied 
to a great variety of cases. The shortest and surest 
method of explaining a universal rule, is to apply it at 
once to a particular example. The principle will illus- 
trate the fact ; and the fact will illustrate the principle. 
The text, standing by itself, may be compared to a 
manufacturing machine, with all its parts fitted in, and 
all its wheels in motion. It is beautiful to look upon 
even now ; but it is only when you feed it with a por- 
tion of suitable material, that you can form a judgment 
of its utility and power. A double benefit then accrues ; 
you ascertain the power of the manufacturing machine, 
and get the use of the manufactured article. 

At present I propose to place the law of the Sabbath 
under the action of this great evangelic principle. 

In the Sabbath, it is well known, are two blessings, a 
higher and a lower, a spiritual and a temporal, — each 
very good according to its kind. One of its uses belongs 
to the dear children of God's family, and another to the 
frail creatures of God's hand. The Sabbath, like man 



A LAW OF THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 889 

for whom it was made, has both a soul and a body. If 
we preserve its soul alive, we shall enjoy also the benefit 
of its body ; but if we grasp only the body, we shall lose 
both. He who used it first himself and then gave it to 
us, is a jealous God : if we do not appreciate its higher 
uses, he will permit the lower to be taken away. 

Using the text as a blank form, we shall, in this in- 
stance, fill it up from the Sabbath law, thus : — Whoso- 
ever hath [a spiritual appreciation of the Sabbath's holi- 
ness], to him shall be given [also the use of the Sabbath 
as a day of bodily rest], and he shall have more abund- 
ance ; but whosoever hath not [a relish for the holy Sab- 
bath], from him shall be taken away even that [weekly 
relief from toil] which he now hath. 

The neglect of the Sabbath's higher ends involves, by 
God's law and according to man's experience, the loss of 
its temporal advantages ; and, conversely, a just estimate 
of these higher ends opens in the wilderness both the 
upper and the nether springs for the refreshment of the 
weary pilgrims. 

Let us illustrate the doctrine now by the experience 
of Nations, Classes, and Persons, Although the same 
facts and principles appear to a large extent in all these 
aspects of humanity, and consequently the distinction 
cannot be strictly maintained throughout the illustration, 
it will, notwithstanding, be of some advantage to show 
the operation of the law separately in each. 

1. Nations. If there were any land in which the 
higher uses of the Sabbath were universally understood 
and enjoyed, we should be able to show there, in their 



890 TO HIM THAT HATH SHALL BE GIVEN : 

full measure, the temporal benefits with which it is 
charged ; but, alas, such an example cannot be found on 
earth. We know what kind of fruit such a tree would 
bear, but nowhere do we find one growing. In default 
of a perfect example, we must turn to such imperfect 
specimens as can be found. In our own country 
and in America, notwithstanding manifold shortcomings, 
there is more of true Sabbath sanctification than in any 
other portions of the world. When a considerable pro- 
portion of the citizens individually sanctify the Sabbath, 
the mass of society is in some measure tinged with a 
better spirit ,' and even in such imperfect examples the 
principle of our text may be seen in operation. The salt, 
in proportion to its amount and its difi*usion, preserves 
national privileges for the careless, without their know- 
ledge, or against their will. A weekly rest from toil, as 
a boon to the labourer, is far more generally enjoyed, 
and far more securely guaranteed in countries where the 
sanctity of the day is in some measure respected, than in 
countries where it has been abandoned to frivolous 
amusement. 

In Popish countries generally, and in some that are 
nominally Protestant, you may see the operation of the 
law in its threatening aspect. From those who have 
not kept the Sabbath holy, the weekly rest has been 
taken away. It is not necessary to adduce particular 
facts from the various countries of the European conti- 
nent ; in general, it is well known, where the people re- 
pudiate the gravity of godliness on the Sabbath, the 
crushing burden of mammon is, in some form, laid upon 



A LAW OF THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 891 

their shoulders. In the medley of sounds which consti- 
tute the hum of Paris on the Lord's day, a Scottish 
Christian distinguishes with sadness the clatter of the 
mechanic's tool. The nation that gives up the day to 
pleasure does not retain the day for rest. 

In a western county of Ireland I have seen, in one 
view, the children on the Lord's day playing ball against 
the waU of the chapel, and the grown people with brows 
sweating and backs bent reaping in the harvest-field. 
The daily wages of a workman in that country that year 
(1 847) were twopence and his food. These simple facts 
contain several useful lessons : where the people of their 
own will make the Sabbath a day of sport, it will, 
against their will, become a day of toil. When a crush 
begins, the weakest goes to the wall : under the 
pressure of hunger, the poor man succumbs, and his 
rest is wrenched away. When the hosts of mammon 
close round the holy day, like an army investing a fort- 
ress, frivolous amusements have not pith to hold it : if 
light frothy pleasures have possession of the citadel, they 
are easily driven in, and a huge tide of toil inundates the 
labourer's rest. If you keep the Lord of the Sabbath by 
your side, filling its space with his word and worship, the 
onset of the enemy may be easily repelled ; but when 
the people grow weary of God's service, banish sacred- 
ness from the day, and fill it up with mirth, they have 
lost their almighty defender, and lie at the mercy of the 
foe : the money power will surround them, and wrest 
away their birthright. When they repudiate the greater 
use of the Sabbath, they cannot retain the less. 



392 TO HIM THAT HATH SHALL BE GIVEN : 

I have never seen a gang of labourers at ordinary work 
in the fields on the Lord's day in Scotland, and I have 
never heard of a full grown man working for twopence 
a day there, at least in this generation. The community 
who part with their birthright do not even get a mess 
of pottage in return. Those who buy the workman's 
Sabbath never pay for it ; those workmen who sell their 
Sabbath, sell it for nought. 

2. Classes. Hitherto we have spoken chiefly of the 
law as it operates on large communities ; now we speak of 
it as it aflects particular classes and characters within a 
community. Those classes in a great city or a nation 
who most fully employ the Sabbath for its higher ends, 
most fully enjoy its subordinate benefits : those who re- 
nounce the spiritual, lose the temporal too. 

The operation of the rule may be distinctly seen in 
the experience of those workmen who fear God and 
sanctify the Sabbath, in our own community ; having 
much, they obtain more. The room is occupied, and the 
evil spirits cannot come in : to fill the day with spiritual 
worship is the sure and only way of keeping out physical 
toil. These men do not en^oy the boon as a matter of 
course, and without an efibrt : speculators approach them 
from time to time, and bid for their Sabbath. To some 
pleasure is offered as the price, and to others profit. In 
certain circumstances these temptations exert formidable 
power. If the labourer had no other defence than an 
inference from the doctrines of political economy, to the 
effect that the transaction would be unprofitable in the 
end, he could not long hold out. His principle may be 



A LAW OF THE CHKISTIAN SABBATH. 393 

sound, and his inference correct, but they lack the power to 
protect him. The appetite for food or for pleasure would 
soon force all the defences that even sound economic 
philosophy could rear around the day of rest. To keep 
the day holy because it is the Lord's is a shorter process: 
it takes hold of a man by the conscience, and that is the 
surest hold; when a law or a practice is deeply bedded 
there, it will not so readily slip even under a great 
strain. Some companies who have enticed their labourers 
to work on the Lord's day, have proposed to give them 
Tuesday instead of it, as a day of rest : but the plan 
must necessarily fail at the first trial. What the mer- 
cantile company give to-day, they can take away to- 
morrow. Workmen who are wise will not consent to 
hold their weekly day of rest at the will of any body of 
capitalists ; they hold their title directly of the Supreme, 
and it is recorded in the oldest charter extani When these 
men keep the day for God, God keeps the day for them. 

A class of an opposite character may be found in the 
same city, and even in the same street ; they do not 
recognise the Sabbath as a day of religious exercises and 
spiritual worship ; they do not read the Bible ; they have 
lost the way to the worshipping assembly, or never found it. 
These have not the Sabbath in its higher employment, and 
therefore it is taken away from them in its lower uses. 
Their souls do not appreciate its sacredness ; and there- 
fore their bodies do not enjoy its ease. They are under 
the inexorable law : " He that hath not, from him shall 
be taken even that which he hath.'' 

There may be here and there an exception, in which 



894 TO HIM THAT HATH SHALL BE GIVEN : 

infidel opinions are allied to sobriety of outward conduct ; 
but among the labouring population this is the exception. 
The rule, as all who mix among the people know, is that 
those who do not make a good use of the Sabbath make 
a bad use of it ; generally those who do not make it a 
time of spiritual profit to their souls, find it a time of 
material injury to their bodies. Until a recent period the 
irreligious portion of society in Scotland made the day of 
rest the chief day of debauch. Workmen who deserted 
the church, frequented in large numbers the public-house; 
and so far were they from being prepared by rest for the 
labour of the following week, that Monday was the day 
on which the greatest number of hands were missing 
from the workshop. When they refused to rest with 
God on his day, the devil would not sufier them to rest 
at all. They were kept toiling in the fires for a hard 
master all the Sabbath, and were therefore on Monday 
more worn than they would have been if no Sabbath 
had ever dawned. This terrible feature of our city's 
wickedness has of late been greatly changed for the 
better, not by a spontaneous movement of the Sabbath 
breakers, but by a more paternal legislation. The 
measure which shut the houses where intoxicating drinks 
are sold, on the day when all other places of merchandise 
are shut, was a tardy instalment of justice and mercy to 
a wretched crowd of self- destroying men. To shut by 
law all ordinary places of business, and open the spirit- 
shops, was an act of national suicide : if that polic}^ were 
thoroughly and permanently reversed, it would leave, at 
least, a fair field for educational and missionary operations. 



A LAW OF THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 895 

While we are speaking of classes in the community, 
it may be of use to point out that by the ordinations of 
providence each is made his brother's keeper, and 
punished if he prove unfaithful to his trust : those who 
without mercy deprive their neighbour of his rest to-day, 
may without mercy be deprived of their own to-morrow. 
If clerks and shopkeepers for their own pleasure keep 
seamen, and firemen, and enginemen bound to their ordi- 
nary tasks on the day of rest, they may soon find them- 
selves compelled, for the pleasure of another class, to sit 
at the desk or stand behind the counter all the seven 
days of the week. If one trade must toil, why should 
not another ? At present you have not the will to pre- 
serve your brother's rest ; by and by you will lack the 
power to keep your own. But what of the capitalist 
who uses the appetites of one class to enslave the other, 
in order that he may make money out of both ? By the 
loss of the Sabbath's sacredness which he does not value, 
the money which he does value will become less worth. 
An estate will not bring so much in a country where 
the Sabbath is profaned, as in a country where it is kept 
holy : the long arm of vengeance in the providential 
laws reaches the highest of the transgressors, and brings 
down the strongest. 

3. Persons. The law holds good in the experience of 
individuals as well as in that of communities and classes ; 
those who do not value the higher uses of the Sabbath, 
wiU fail to attain the lower. That holy day intervening 
between a week of the great world's strife on either side, 
is hke the hollow path on which the emancipated Hebrews 



896 TO HIM THAT HATH SHALL BE GIVEN: 

in the Exodus marched through the sea, with the angry 
waters rising like a heap on the right and on the left. 
The waters did not close and cover the fugitives, although 
it was the law of their nature to do so, because they were 
held back by the presence of God with his people ; but 
when Israel had passed over, and Egypt came on, God 
being no longer with those who occupied the avenue 
to keep the waters out, the waters came wildly in : the 
sea, in obedience to its own law of gravity, levelled itself 
over the path, and all who were in it perished. 

As steadily and strongly as the Red Sea's waters pressed 
in by their own law, to fill that hollow space in their 
midst, so steadily and strongly the sea of the world's 
cares presses in to swallow up the Sabbath, which dares 
to divide it into two. It is not the nature of either sea 
to stand up Hke a wall on this side and a wall on that 
side ; these strong waters are kept at bay by a stronger 
One; when he is permitted to depart they will close and 
cover us. 

The only way of keeping the world out of our Sab- 
bath is to keep Christ in. If in our own hearts indivi- 
dually and in our families, we value and enjoy the greater 
we shaU. retain also the less ; but if, from want of taste 
for it, we abandon spiritual communion with the Lord 
on his own day, the material benefit of bodily rest will 
slip from our hands. The evil spirits hovering round, 
press like air upon the privilege ; the moment that they 
find the room empty they rush in. 

If we succeed in cherishing the living soul of the 
Sabbath, we shall enjoy also a healthy body; but if we 



A LAW OF THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 397 

let the soul slip and cleave to tlie body, tlae body without 
the spirit will putrify in our hands. When the body is 
dead it becomes noisome, and we are fain to bury it out 
of our sight. Thus the weekly Sabbath, where its spirit- 
ual uses are lost, becomes a loathsome thing. In the 
experience of individuals and of families, may be often 
seen the operation of the dread divine law that where the 
greater is rejected the less is turned into a curse. A 
Sabbath unsanctified becomes in many cases the vilest day 
of all the seven; as a body bereft of the spirit becomes 
more noisome than common dust. When the Lord is 
banished from his day, the adversary takes possession of 
it, and makes it the period of heaviest drudgery to his 
slaves. 

Those who strive to induce one portion of the people 
to play, and another to work on the Lord's day, employ 
the text, " the Sabbath was made for man," as a staple 
in their argument. They handle the Scriptures awkwardly 
— those who grasp a sword by the blade will probably 
hurt only themselves. It seems a " Sabbath was made " 
by divine authority; and what is a Sabbath ? It is rest, 
especially rest of a religious character. This is the 
meaning of the word, and this is the thing which the 
word has designated in all time. The Lord Jesus said 
that a rest-day " was made," and he certainly did not 
unmake it ; but who are these who quote the Saviour's 
words, and at the same time endeavour to demolish the 
thing which the words signify? God made one day in 
seven a rest ; they propose to change that day also, more 



398 TO HIM THAT HATH SHALL BE GIVEN : 

or less, into a day of labour, and then quote the Bible 
in favour of their plan ! 

But besides intimating that a rest was appointed by 
divine authority, that remarkable word of Jesus declares 
that it was made " for man/' This is like the other gifts 
of God, — like air and water, the rest is for all. But ere 
this text can really support those who invoke its aid, we 
must read it, The Sabbath was made for rich men and 
shareholders, not for firemen and enginemen. The clerk, 
the guard, the mechanic, the postman, and others whom 
the passion for gain or pleasure would chain to the oar 
on all the days of the week, are men ; for these, as well 
as for others, our Father in heaven made the rest. What 
God has given, let no man dare to take away. 

The Giver of the day of rest knew the dangers to 
which it would be exposed, and made provision for re- 
pelling them. At the same place of Scripture (Mark ii. 
27, 28) where we learn that the Sabbath was made for man, 
we learn also that Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath. It is 
made for man's benefit, but not given over to his will. 
Having a large fortune, and an only son, yet a little child, 
and apprehending that the time of your departure is at 
hand, you consider anxiously what disposition of the pro- 
perty will best secure the interests of the orphan heir. 
Paternal love induces you to bequeath your wealth for 
behoof of your child; but your knowledge of the world 
will not permit you to place it in his hands; the first 
sharper who might pass would snatch it from him. You 
search for one who is wise, and good, and powerful, and 
constitute him guardian of your infant's inheritance ; you 



A LAW OF THE CHKISTIAN SABBATH. 399 

give the treasure to Mm in trust for behoof of your 
child. 

The Sabbath was made for man; he who contrived 
and bestowed it knows our need, and makes provision for 
it with all a father's tenderness. But men are foolish 
and simple like little children ; witness how cheaply they 
barter the boon away, as far as they have the power in 
their own hands ; our Father in heaven made it for our 
use, but did not place it at our disposal. Christ has 
been constituted its Lord, and maintains it for our benefit. 
In his hands it is in safe keeping ; it Avould have been 
imsafe in ours. For the privilege let us lean on his 
authority; greater is he that is for us than all that are 
against us. God, our Saviour, is legal guardian of the 
treasure, and will a man rob God? The Son of man is 
Lord of the Sabbath ; all the efforts of covetousness and 
pleasure combined cannot wrench the title-deeds from the 
trustee's hand. 

But beware ! the preciousness of the object may, through 
our blindness, become a snaxe. Although the image be 
of pure gold, it is not the less sinful to fall down and 
worship it. Man was not made for it; it was made for 
him. We must not serve it, but serve ourselves of it. 
The Sabbath is not the Saviour ; it is a space cleared and 
left open, for the intercourse between Christ and Chris- 
tians. If we do not personally meet and commune with 
the Lord on his day, it will avail us little that the buyers 
and sellers of this world were driven forth, in prepara- 
tion for the interview. The Sabbath is to the world like 
the open space above us, which we are accustomed to call 



400 TO HIM THAT HATH SHALL BE GIVEN. 

the firmamentj a place to hold the sun; but it will all 
be dark and cold if there is not a shining sun in its 
centre, sending light and warmth from its eastern morn- 
ing to its western eve. The Sabbath is not a light ; it is 
only a cleared space for holding Him who is the hght of 
the world. 

The Sabbath, like the Bible, is precious, not for its 
own sake as an end, but for the sake of Christ, whom 
believers seek and find in it. Both these good gifts 
become dead letters when he is not present as their 
life ; but to those who know that chief use, both are 
fully charged also with subordinate blessings. If we 
make the Sabbath a day of spiritual communion with its 
Lord, he will make it for us a day of physical rest from 
the toils of time. Those who ask the greater get both : 
those who ask only the less get neither. 

Christians, keep company with the Lord in that hol- 
low path between the world's divided waters ; and he 
will keep the path open for himself and you. 



SEED TO THE SOWER, AND BREAD TO THE EATER. 401 



XXVII. 

SEED TO THE SOWER, AND BEEAD TO 
THE EATER. 

'*As the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth nob 
thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that 
it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater ; so sLall my word be 
that goeth forth out of my mouth." — Isa. Iv. 10, 11. 

" Now he that ministereth seed to the sower, both minister bread for your food, 
and multiply your seed, sown, and increase the fruits of your righteousness." 
—2 Cor. ix. 10. 

The principal lesson of these scriptures may, on the 
whole, be most conveniently ascertained and enforced by 
considering, — 

I. The Facts in Nature from which the analogy is 
taken ; and — 

II. The Spiritual Purpose for which the analogy is 
employed. 

I. The Facts in Nature from which the analogy is 
taken. 

1. God's part in the process: he gives (1.) Seed; and, 
(2.) Rain. 

(1 .) He gives Seed. If the annual growth of seed is 
not itself a perpetual miracle, it is the perpetual evidence 
of a miracle that has once been wrought. Although its 
constituent materials are scattered in great abundance 

2C 



402 SEED TO THE SOWER, 

around us, all the men of all the world could not make 
a seed. If all the seeds which the world contains were 
crushed at one time, as some are crushed for bread, a 
loud, but helpless, hopeless wail would rise from earth to 
heaven. Without a new miracle, as decisive in kind as 
the creation of a world, the race could not be preserved. 
At present, grains are silently elaborated out of materials 
which abound in earth, and air, and water. The elements, 
mixed without fire or crucible, combine in their proper 
proportions ; there is no deficiency, — no excess. When 
completed, each grain has life, and the power of repro- 
ducing life, down through a thousand generations. 

In all the examples with which we are acquainted, 
whether by personal observation within our own sphere, 
or the testimony of others beyond it, grain gTOws from 
seed by the ordinary processes of nature. If in a single 
case it should grow without a seed, the fact would be 
confessed a miracle. But it is self-evident that the first 
seed did not grow from a seed ; therefore the existence 
of a single grain of wheat is evidence, altogether resist- 
less, that a miracle has been wrought. Philosophy 
humbly adliibits its signature to the declaration of Scrip- 
ture, that God gives seed to the sower. And not only 
seed in general, but every species in particular, is a divine 
gift ; " God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and 
to every seed his ow^n body" (1 Cor. xv. 38). Species 
and genera do not interchange in nature ; it is as much 
beyond our power to make wheat spring from barley as 
to make it spring from nothing. 

(2.) He gives Rain. Although the grain has been 



AND BREAD TO THE EATER. 403 

formed with the capabilities of growth and reproduction 
in its nature, it cannot grow and reproduce its kind unless 
it meet with influences, external to itself, fitted to call 
forth its latent powers. It must have earth, air, light, 
and moisture : wanting any one of these, all the inherent 
capabilities of the seed would go for nothing : it would 
never grow. In the text, moisture by means of rain, 
the most obvious of these indispensable fellow-workers, 
stands as representative of the whole. The grain is won- 
derfully prepared, by its internal structure, for sending 
forth a bud charged with germs of its kind a hundred- 
fold; but these would lie dormant as a stone unless the 
earth that covers them were moistened with water. 
Wheat has lain beyond the reach of air and moisture in 
Egyptian tombs, without germinating, probably two 
thousand years; and has, it is said, immediately sprung 
and reproduced itself, when again committed to the humid 
earth, as if unconscious of its long slumber. The internal 
structure and the external appliances are both alike 
necessary to reproduction ; and God provides both in 
fitting time and measure. 

In reasoning with idolaters who did not possess the 
Scriptures, Paul appeals to this obvious trace of the 
Creator's goings : " He left not himself without witness, 
in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and 
fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and glad- 
ness" (Acts xiv. 17). Conversely, when God designs to 
chastise a people with the scourge of famine, it is not 
necessary to destroy the seed : in this form the stroke 
sometimes falls, as in Ireland a few years ago, by the 



404 SEED TO THE SOWER, 

direct and rapid decomposition of the seed whicli consti- 
tuted the principal food of the inhabitants; but generally 
when famine comes, it is caused by the want of rain. 
Either method is equally effective. It is with partial 
and limited success that we speculate on the causes of 
scarcity. We may sometimes succeed in tracing them a 
few. steps higher than the ground ; but both the lines 
penetrate the clouds above us, and lie beyond our view 
in the hands of "a faithful Creator '^ (1 Pet. iv. 19). 

2. Man's part in the process: he sows and eats. 

In all the arrangements of the Mundane system there 
is a marked adaptation to the physical and moral dis- 
cipline of man. In nature as well as in grace, it might be 
written, "All things are for your sakes'' (2 Cor. iv. 15). 

One could imagine a globe like the earth so constituted 
that aU its crust, to an indefinite depth, should consist of 
matter fit to be the food of man. It would be a jovial 
world for a savage, if he had nothing more to do than go 
to the end of his hut in the morning, wath a spade and 
sack, and quarry as much food as would supply his family 
for the day ;- but in all probability none but savages would 
grow in such a world. As a dwelling-place and exercise- 
ground for the human family, the earth is better as it is. 
By giving " seed to the sower," and so providing bread to 
the eater, our Father in heaven has consulted better for all 
the interests of his children: by requiring their consent 
and co-operation he promotes them to the dignity of 
fellow -workers with himself. The apparatus in nature 
for the production of human food is like a vast and com- 
plicated piece of ma^chinery, moving in exquisite harmony, 



AND BREAD TO THE EATER. 405 

and possessing indefinite power ; but it clanks empty and 
produces nothing, until men come forward and feed it. 
The Creator's preparations do not feed men, wdthout men's 
foresight and labour : this is not the defect, but the perfec- 
tion of the plan. 

Sowing and eating are closely related; if a man did 
not sow, he could not long continue to eat ; and if he did 
not eat, he could not long continue to sow. By his fore- 
thought and toil from spring to autumn, he is enabled to 
eat in plenty throughout the succeeding year; and in the 
strength of this food he undergoes the fatigue necessary 
for bringing the next harvest to perfection. God gives 
seed: but he gives it only to the sower. He does not 
deposit a continent of food within reach of human animals 
that they may eat and drink and die; the sustenance of 
man is as certainly and as obviously the gift of God, as 
under such an arrangement it would have been, but the 
gift is so fashioned as to stimulate the activity of the re- 
ceiver and bring to perfection all his powers. 

II. The Spiritual Purpose for which the analogy is 
employed. 

Hitherto we have been occupied with the preparatory 
work of setting up the types: we now proceed to turn 
them over and press them home, in the hope of leaving 
a legible page where simple learners may obtain a lesson 
on the Way of Life. The letters are in themselves in- 
structive as the works of God in nature; but their chief 
value lies in their fitness as instruments for recording and 
unfolding the mind of the Spirit in redemption. For 



406 SEED TO THE SOWER. 

that purpose they were used even by Isaiah ; for that pur- 
pose too they were gathered up and reset by Paul, in a 
new edition of Isaiah's gospel. The narrative of natural 
events is introduced expressly as a vehicle for conveying 
a higher truth : it is written, ''As the rain cometh down, 
.so shall my word be. " 

The natural process has, in all its principal features, 
its counterpart in the kingdom of grace. There also, 
God's gifts and man's labour combine in producing the 
beneficial result. 

1. God's part: he gives Seed and Kain. 

(1.) Seed. His word is compared frequently, emphati- 
cally, specifically, to grain, both in its quality of seed, 
and in its quality of food. From the lips of the Great 
Teacher we learn that the seed which the sower goes 
forth to sow is the word of Gcd. The spiritual seed is as 
exclusively God's gift as the natural. Men could no 
more make a real gospel, endowed with life and repro- 
ductive power, than they could make a grain of wheat 
capable of growing. The curse came heaviest upon the 
moral aspect of the world ; of itself it bringeth forth only 
thorns and thistles. Examine the various systems of re- 
ligion which men have invented; these are the things 
that grow of themselves on a soil that sin has blighted. 
They are both unsightly in appearance, and noxious in 
nat'dre. Can a man gather grapes from these thorns? 
Can a soul live on any of the abominations of idolatry? 
You might as well expect your child to live and thrive, 
if instead of bread you gave him a stone, — instead of a 
fish a serpent. In both departments permanence ai)d 



AND BREAD TO THE EATER. 407 

plenty are secured by a process of sowing and reproduc- 
tion in v/liich man must be a fellow- worker ; but in the 
origin of both God acts alone. He took no creature into 
his counsel when he gave to the seed of grain and to the 
seed, of the word "a body as it pleased him.'' In fram- 
ing the plan of redemption and bestowing the " unspeak- 
able gift/' God is absolutely sovereign and free. 

On the day of Pentecost, soon after the Lord had 
ascended into heaven, the Spirit, appropriately symbolized 
as " a rushing mighty wind," suddenly caught up the seed 
at Jerusalem and spread it in many lands. In Greece and 
Africa, in Spain and Italy, in Arabia, Persia, and even 
India, fields whitened to the harvest. There has been 
no such " rushing mighty wind" since; but here and there, 
from time to time, the Spirit has come, and in greater or 
smaller measure wrought the same result, as if to pro- 
claim to each generation that we are not straitened in 
him. 

But soon after that first and greatest sowing, a long 
cold, barren winter came upon the church. Those who 
assumed the charge of the word gradually ceased to live 
upon it as bread, and therefore ceased to sow it as seed ; 
gradually ceased to sow it as seed, and therefore obtained 
less and less of it to live upon as bread. The priests of 
Home sometimes boast that Protestants are indebted to 
them for preserving the Bible till the fifteenth century. 
In one sense, not to their credit, they were the means 
of preserving it. The priests of ancient Egypt, for some 
object which we cannot now fully understand, but perhaps 
with allusion to the resurrection, were wont to wrap up 



408 SEED TO THE SOWER, 

some grains of wheat with the embahned body in the 
rocky tombs. This seed, when removed from its sepul- 
chral imprisonment of ages, has been of late sow^n ; 
and if those who conducted the experiment were not 
deceived, it grew and multiplied, thanks to its own 
wonderful vitality, not to the wisdom of heathen priests, 
who wrapt the living in the cerements of the dead. Such 
was the service which Kome durino^ the middle ao^es 
performed for the Bible. Ignorant of its value, the 
monks occupied their leisure in fancifully decorating and 
perfuming it. Having dressed it as a corpse, they buried 
it in their cloisters. While it lay there during those 
dreary centuries it did not bless the world, but it retained 
its own vitality; and when its grave was rent by the 
earthquake commotions of the Keformation, it became 
seed again in the sower's hand, and bread to satisfy 
hungering nations. 

(2.) Kain. Seed, after it has been given by God and 
sown by man, is not more entirely dependent for growth 
on rain from heaven, than the word preached is dependent 
on the ministry of the Spirit. As the power lay in God's 
hands at first, and it was of his own free will that he 
gave his word as seed; so he retains the power in his 
own hands still, for the seed which has been committed 
to earthen vessels will never and nowhere spring until 
the Spirit be poured out like rain on the dry ground. 
Some fields have been of late greatly refreshed ; this is 
" a sign from heaven " that God remembers his promise, 
and loves to answer prayer. The gift lies absolutely in 
his hands ; let us own and honour his sovereignty — he 



AND BEEAD TO THE EATER. 409 

delights to bestow the gift; let us plead in the spirit of adop- 
tion, and count on the kindness of a Father's heart. He who 
gives " rain from heaven and fruitful seasons," is able to 
refresh his heritage when it is weary. Perhaps if we 
were as sincere, and hearty, and persistent in our longing 
for the Spirit to quicken the seed of the word in human 
souls as for the rain to moisten our fields in spring, the 
spiritual husbandry of the nation would prosper as well 
as the natural. 

2. Man's part. To the sower seed is given ; to the 
eater bread. A specific place has been divinely assigned 
to man in the administration of the gospel, like the place 
which he occupies in the processes of nature ; here, too, 
he must sow and eat, eat and sow. 

(1.) He must sow. The seed of the word has not 
been created in our days. The law was not spoken 
amidst fire and smoke from the mountain-tops of our 
land ; the man Christ Jesus did not go out and in among 
our villages in the days of our youth, preaching the 
kingdom of heaven. The gospel began in another part 
of the earth, and thence it was brought to this country 
many ages before we were born. The seed was faithfully 
sown by our forefathers ; they often sowed in tears, and it is 
owing to their courage and diligence that we now reap in joy. 

Some countries where the gospel was planted early and 
flourished long are now completely desolate. If one 
generation has failed to sow, the next generation perish 
for want of food, whether the failure was due to violence 
from without or indolence within. Both physically and 
morally each generation depends on the one that preceded 



410 SEED TO THE SOWER, 

it ; this is the will of God and the constitution of the 
world. The growth, and even the continued life of the 
child is left dependent on the parents ; at a time when 
it can neither judge nor act it lies at their mercy, and 
they may be neither intelligent nor kind. In a similar 
way, intellectually and morally, the generation rising up 
is moulded by the generation now in the ascendant. 

One person and one people grow up with Christianity 
as their religion, and European learning as the staple of 
their intellectual education ; another person and another, 
people grow up with Brahminism as their religion, and 
Asiatic fables as the food of their minds ; under the divine 
sovereignty, indeed, the diversity is permitted, but 
instrumentally it is all due to the sowing of far-removed 
progenitors. Each generation of men is a link in a 
hanging chain ; it hangs in the link above itself, and 
bears up those that are below. When any one gives 
way, all that are beneath it falL 

Why should people stumble so much at the doctrine 
of the fall in the person of our first progenitor ? — it is not 
a new or strange thing. The doctrine that sin came 
into the world by one man, and that we all became 
sinners and sufferers by our connection with one who 
died long before we were born, is a stumbling-block to 
many when they meet it in the Scriptures ; but they meet 
the same thing in the world every day. This people are in 
a good position religiously, intellectually, and economically 
to-day, because their forefathers sowed the good seed ; 
and that people are in a bad condition, because their 
forefathers neglected to sow it. Speculate as you 



AND BREAD TO THE EATER. 411 

may about the reason or the effect of it, but there 
it is. 

In Asia Minor, for example, where John preached the 
love of Christ, and true Christians for several generations 
were nourished by the bread of life, the children are now 
taught to believe the imposture of Mahomet, because 
many hundred years .ago their forefathers, through spiri- 
tual declension or external violence, ceased to sow the 
seed of the word. It is as foolish to deny the doctrine 
as it would be to kick against the fact. To stand upon 
the brink and look down into these depths is not fitted 
to gratify our pride : may it increase our humility ! What 
we enjoy we did not make. The source of our privileges 
is the sovereign love of our Father in heaven, and the 
faithfulness of our fathers on earth is the channel by 
which they have reached us. We have nothing that we 
did not receive. 

The inference is obvious : having gotten bread to eat 
through the faithfulness of our fathers, let us sow the 
seed for the benefit of our children. We are a link in 
the middle of the chain : if we fail, our followers perish. 
We are our children's keepers ; if we do for them what 
our witnessing forefathers did for us, they will rise up 
and call us blessed. 

In the spiritual as well as in the natural harvest reap- 
ing is a joyful thing ; but the sowing is often a painful 
process. Those who bear the precious seed often go forth 
weeping ; but all the brighter on that account is their 
joy when they bear the ripened harvest home, (Psalm 
cxxvi.) A deeper love for souls would make Christians 



412 SEED TO THE SOWER, 

mourn more over the low estate of the world; this sorrow 
would send them out to sow ; the seed sown with tears 
comes quickly away, and yields a large return. " Blessed 
are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted." 

(2.) He must eat. As in the natural, so also in the 
spiritual department, we sow the food on which we live, 
and live upon the seed which we sow. The same word 
is the seed which the sower sows, and the bread which 
the eater eats. 

If any one should sow every day and never eat, he 
would fade away and die : the strange phenomenon 
would be presented of a man providing food for others, 
and dying for want himself. In the natural husbandry 
no such case occurs ; in the spiritual husbandry it occurs 
frequently, although perhaps it may not proceed far ; in 
point of fact, he who does not live on the word as his 
soul's food, will not long continue to sow the word for the 
good of the world. The spiritual food is supplied to us 
after the analogy of the natural. God does not give the 
children of his family a heap of sustenance, which with- 
out labour will last their lifetime; bestowed in the form 
of seed, it is enjoyed always fresh and new. The exer- 
cise of sowing produces a healthful appetite for eating; 
and the appetite for eating stimulates to the labour of 
sowing. In this circle the new world goes round. "Work 
out your own salvation'' — " for it is God that worketh 
in you.'' 

There are two ways of treating the seed. The botan- 
ist splits it up and discourses on its curious characteristics ; 
the simple husbandman eats and sows ; sows and eats. 



AND BREAD TO THE EATER. 413 

Similarly there are two ways of treating the gospel. A 
critic dissects it ; raises a mountain of debate about the 
structure of the whole, and relation of its parts ; and 
when he is done with his argument, he is done. To 
him the letter is dead ; he neither lives on it himself, 
nor spreads it for the good of his neighbours. He neither 
eats nor sows. The disciple of Jesus, hungering for right- 
eousness takes the seed whole; it is bread for to-day's 
hunger, and seed for to-morrow's supply. 

But the scientific botanist may also be a husbandman ; 
and wise is he, if he use his technical knowledge of the 
seed in sowing it more skilfully. He who examines 
most keenly the letter of the word, may get the spirit 
too. Criticism is lawful and useful when it helps us 
to live upon every word of God. Those who have most 
learning must at last come down to the level of those 
who have none. As might have been expected under the 
government of our Father in heaven, that which is neces- 
sary to life is within the reach of all; the gospel preached 
to the poor is an acknowledged evidence that Christ has 
come. The philologist and the theologian must go down 
and stand beside the unlettered peasant, and there, with 
him and like him, eat and sow the word of eternal life. 
The greatest scholar who only dissects seed will die of 
hunger soon ; while the simplest countryman who eats 
and sows it will live and prosper. Beware of resting in 
a hard dry dissection of doctrines ; after all our museum 
knowledge of the structure of the seed, we shall die in the 
midst of plenty, unless the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ 
become the daily bread of our souls. 



414 SEED TO THE SOWER, AND BREAD TO THE EATER. 

Two men come to the judgment-seat of Christ. One 
says, Lord, I found the seed which thou didst send from 
heaven ; I examined its wonderful structure and demon- 
strated its divine origin ; I separated and classified and 
named all its constituent elements ; my labours confirmed 
the friends, and convinced the enemies of the truth. The 
other says. Lord, I found thy seed; being hungry, I fed 
on it ; being anxious for the future, I sowed it ; of the 
harvest which it produced I ate more abundantly my- 
self, and distributed to all my neighbours. That man 
dies of want ; this man lives and transmits life to suc- 
ceeding generations, 

" Then Jesus said unto them, Yerily, verily, I say unto 
you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven ; but 
my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For 
the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, 
and giveth life unto the world. Then said they unto 
him. Lord, evermore give us this bread. And Jesus said 
unto them, I am the bread of life ; he that cometh to me 
shall never hunger ; and he that believeth on me shalL 
never thirst" (John vi. 32-35). 

There is bread enough ; ''Blessed are they that hunger!" 



THE PEACE OF GOD RULING IN THE ilEART. 415 

XXYIII. 
THE PEACE OF GOD KTJLING IN THE HEAET. 

''Let the peace of God rule in your hearts." — Col. iii. 15, 

In the text, wlien thus isolated, are these three things, — 

I, The Place where power is put forth — " in your 
hearts." 

II. The Manner in which power is put forth there — 
"rule." 

III. The Power which is put forth there and thus — 
" the peace of God." 

To help the memory, we may call them — The Region; 
The Reign; The Ruler. 

I. The Eegion: where the ruling power touches, and 
takes effect — ''in your hearts.'* " The kingdom of God is 
not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace and 
joy in the Holy Ghost." "The kingdom of God cometh 
'not with observation. Neither shall they say, Lo, here; 
or lo, there: for behold the kingdom of God is within 
you." "My kingdom is not of this world." " My son, 
give me thine heart." 

How practical and plain-dealing is the word of God ! 
It does not go about the bush. It makes a straiglitfor- 



416 THE PEACE OF GOD RULING IN THE HEAET. 

ward, pointed appeal. This word comes to you, brother ; 
and it tells its errand aloud. God its author desires to 
have you; to have you brought into subjection, and 
employed in righteousness. He puts forth his hand to 
arrest you in your rebellion; to uplift you from the 
deep. He comes forth to seek and find you; to bring 
you back to himself, that the mansions which he has 
prepared may be peopled with sons and daughters. He 
desires to draw you with an everlasting love, and 
therefore he comes into your heart and fastens the cord 
there. 

The Author of the Bible is the Maker of man. He 
knows our frame. He knows, he feels the measure of 
the force with which the carnal mind departs from the 
living God, and provides the power necessary to coun- 
teract and overcome it. He knows the point in the 
complex constitution of his creature where divine love 
should be applied, in order that it may have purchase 
and power to arrest and restore. 

The heart, as it is called by a metaphor common to 
Scripture and the language of ordinary life, is the regu- 
lator of the whole man. It means the will and the 
affections, as distinguished from the intellect. It is the 
choosing faculty, as distinguished from the knowing 
faculty. It is that in man which fastens impetuously 
on an object loved, without waiting in all cases for a 
decision of the judgment whether the object is worthy. 

In the regenerated man both faculties are restored to 
healthy action. The mind becomes capable of knowing 
the true, and the affections disposed to fix on the holy. 



THE PEACE OF GOD RULING IN THE HEART. 417 

But, although in the just made perfect, these two will 
be equally renewed, they differ both as to order and im- 
portance during the process. Both in "the fall, and 
the rising again " the heart goes first, and is chief. 
There the disease begins, and there the remedy must be 
applied. By the fall, the heart has become deceitful 
above all things, and desperately wicked; in the regene- 
ration, the heart is made new. By sin it becomes a 
stony heart; through grace it becomes a heart of flesh. 
It is there that the fool says. No God; and there that 
God our Saviour dw^ells when the possessed has come to 
himself again. This heart of man is the great battle- 
field of the world. Satan triumphed there ; and thence 
a Stronger casts the usurper out. The heart of the chil- 
dren of men is set in them to do evil; to turn it again 
like a river of water, and cause it to flow towards God 
and goodness, is the errand of Christ to earth. After 
his ascension the message which he sent by that apostle 
who had lain closest to his bosom, and who lingered 
longest behind in life, is, "Behold, I stand at the door, 
and knock; if any man open, I will come in." 

It is by this heart that the attitude is determined, the 
path traced ont, and the impulse given. When the 
heart is drawn in one direction, the whole man follows. 
To sin, and death, and hell the man madly follows, when 
the heart has tasted its forbidden pleasures and leads 
the vv^ay; as the ox runs towards the shambles, drawn 
by the scent of blood on the butcher's hands. Down tho 
slippery incline the heart leads the unresisting victim, 
although the understanding should perceive and the 

2D 



418 THE PEACE OF GOD RULING IN THE HEART. 

conscience proclaim that these "steps take hold on hell." 
When you endeavour to arrest a brother who is thus 
drawn unto death, you must get hold of him by the 
heart; for although you gain his judgment to the side 
of righteousness, the judgment has not power to reverse 
the movement, or even to slacken the speed. The 
heart's affections, strong and foul like a river in flood, 
bear the victim down, and the breath of a better judg- 
ment, though it blows in the right direction, avails not to 
turn and save. 

On this torrent we all lie ; and with it we are carried im- 
petuously down. The rush of an evil heart's affections, 
like other swollen streams, will not yield to reason. 
When God by his word and Spirit comes to save, he 
saves by arresting the heart and making it new. 

An engine, dragging its train on the rail, is sweeping 
along the landscape. As it comes near it strikes awe 
into the spectator. Its furious fire and smoke, its 
rapid whirling wheels, its mighty mass shaking the 
ground beneath it, and the stealthy quickness of its 
approach — its whole appearance and adjuncts make the 
observer bate his breath till it is past. What power 
would sufiice to arrest that giant strength ? Although 
a hundred men should stand up before it, or seize its 
whirling wheels, it would cast them down, and over 
their mangled bodies hold on its unimpeded course, with 
nothing to mark the occurrence but a quiver, as it cleared 
the heap! But there is a certain spot in the machinery 
where the touch of a little child will make the monster 
slacken his pace, creep gently forward, stand still, slide 



THE PEACE OF GOD RULING IN THE HEART. 419 

back like a spaniel fawning under an angry word at the 
feet of his master. 

A ship driven by fierce winds is gliding with all the 
momentum of great bulk and great speed forward — for- 
ward upon a sunken rock, where the gurgling breakers 
greedily; gloomily predict her doom. What apparatus 
can you bring to bear on the devoted vessel? What 
chain thrown around her bows will bring her to a 
stand? The massiest cable coming across her course 
will snap like a thread of tow 1 But a touch by a man's 
hand on the helm will turn the huge mass sharply 
round, and leave it standing still upon the surface, with 
its empty sails flapping idly in the wind. 

These great works of man laugh to scorn every effort 
to arrest their course by direct obstructive force ; and yet 
they are so constructed that a gentle touch on a tender 
place makes all in an instant still. 

This greatest work of God, more wonderful by far — 
this man — this self of me — moves with a greater impetus 
to a deeper, longer doom. Moving from birth in the 
direction of death, the immortal gathers momentum 
every hour, bursting through all the resolutions and 
efforts of himself and his neighbours, as Samson broke the 
withes that were twisted round his wrists. How Paul 
wept when he found that his wild heart would brook no 
restraint of his better judgment ! I find a law in my 
members, that when I would do good, evil is present with 
me. No power in heaven or earth will arrest that down- 
ward fall, unless it be laid upon the heart. The human 
being is so constituted that a touch there may turn him, 



420 THE PEACE OF GOD EULING IN THE HEART. 

but nothing else will. Oh, to be arrested by the 
heart ! Unless Jesus cast the bands of his love about 
that heart, as we are rushing past, there remains nothing 
but a fearful looking for of judgment. Lord, grasp me 
there. Lord, save me, I perish. Thy people shall be 
willing in the day of thy power. 

When they told the blind beggar at the way-side that 
Jesus was passing by, he rose and ran, and cried, ''Jesus, 
thou son of David, have mercy on me ! " My heart. Lord ! 
arrest it; subdue it; make it new. "Create in me 
a clean heart, God ; and renew a right spirit within 
me." 

II. The Keign : the manner in which the heart is 
possessed and controlled — "rule." 

The word translated "rule" in this text is very pe- 
culiar ; it occurs nowhere else in Scripture. But 
although the word is only once employed, its meaning 
is neither difficult nor doubtful. It is borrowed from 
the practice of the Greeks at their great national games ; 
or rather, the Greek language was formed upon Greek 
history, and the scriptures of the New Testament adopt 
the language as a vehicle to reveal God's will. Hence, 
in a way altogether natural and necessary, great spiritual 
facts and laws are frequently expressed by words that 
were originally cast in the mould of Greek customs, or 
jurisprudence, or warfare. This word relates to the prize for 
which the athletes contended in the stadium. A monarch, 
or other chief presiding, held the prize in his hand, while 
the contest proceeded, and conferred it on the victor at 



THE PEACE OF GOD EULING IN THE HEART. 421 

the close. Thereby he exercised over the runners or 
wrestlers a peculiar kind of rule. By the display of that 
prize he led, he impelled them. They felt the impulse, 
and gave their whole being over to its sway. The word 
which designated the office and power of this president 
is the "rule" of our text. 

This is different from the rule which a king exercises 
over his subjects, or a master over his servants. It is 
more pervading, more complete than theirs. In e^^ery 
emergency men are fain to resort to it when other 
authorities fail. When a valuable jewel is lost, or a 
murderer escapes from the hand of justice, if the sense 
of duty and the magistrate's command suffice not, the 
last resource — last, because strongest — is to offer a re- 
ward. This is a force which reaches far, and penetrates 
deep : it finds out the person who can do the work, 
and constrains him to do it. This species of rule avails 
to accomplish the object when other kinds have proved 
impotent. 

This is the kind of rule which man's Maker applies to 
man's heart. By hope are ye saved ; or by despair lost. 
''There is no hope; we have followed idols, and after 
them will we go:" or, "There is bread enough in my 
Father's house," and love enough in my Father's heart: 
" I will arise and go to my Father." Thus were the 
Hebrews ruled throughout their long pilgrimage in the 
wilderness. The promised rest, ever displayed before 
their weary eyes, held them up and drew them on. 
Even Jesus was, in this respect, made like unto his 
brethren : it was for the joy that was set before him 



422 THE PEACE OF GOD EULING IN THE HEART. 

that lie endured the cross and despised the shame. It 
was the same species of force that generated Panl's 
impetuous and persevering movement — forward, up- 
ward. That crown of glory which by faith he saw 
glittering already in the righteous Judge's hand, held 
his heart as with a magnet's mysterious drawing, and 
slackened not until his course was finished and the 
victory won. The long train of worthies commemorated 
in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, where every verse 
is a hero's monument, felt, too, this resistless impulse, 
and followed whithersoever it led. Their whole life 
declared aloud that they sought a city, and expected it, 
too, as the issue of all their sufferings — " a city that 
hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God." 
Promises such as God makes, and the godly cling to, are 
indeed exceeding great and precious : they are the 
anchor of the soul which blessed hope holds by, until 
the soul reaches the rest that remaineth, and needs no 
more an anchor, because it feels no more a sea. 

Be not deceived by great swelling words, or secret 
deceitful thoughts about being free. Freedom from rule 
is not competent to man ; the only choice he has is a 
choice of masters. Every spirit here is ruled, the boldest 
as well as the most timid — ^ruled by motives swaying his 
heart, as a feather is borne on the wind, or a withered 
leaf on the bosom of a torrent. Your body is held by 
gravitation to the surface of the earth, and the earth is 
kept by gravitation moving in its orbit round the sun. 
In these respects we are ruled. We are absolutely 
helpless in the hands of matter, and its laws, and its 



THE PEACE OF GOD RULING IN THE HEART. 423 

Lawgiver. This cord binds ns and carries ns, whether 
we will or not, millions of miles through space every day. 
Suppose one of these comets to be a vast world of fire; 
and suppose that it lies at a certain point in space forward 
many millions of miles on the earth's orbit ; suppose that 
the earth going forward must meet it, like the collision 
of two ships in the sea, and that the meeting is destruction 
to the earth and death to all that live on it. The wail 
of all mankind in the prospect will not save them. 
Forward ! forward all must go to meet their doom ! 
They cannot flee. Freedom of motion, indeed, we have 
through a little space on this planet's surface; but the 
planet and all its inhabitants are, in the meantime, 
inexorably drawn on in a determined route, and at a 
determined velocity, by laws and forces absolutely beyond 
their control. 

Now, the rule in the world of spirit is as absolute as 
in the world of matter : we are ruled, not rulers. There 
is, indeed, a liberty to choose and to refuse, — a liberty such 
as suits the creature, and such as the all- wise C realtor 
has bestowed, — it is all we have, and all we need; 
but it is like the liberty of moving from place to 
place on the earth's surface, while the earth with us 
upon it follows another drawing, and obeys another 
law. In kind and degree the little liberty which man 
possesses is the very liberty that suits him best. Oh! 
if all were in his own power, and subject to his own 
will, who then should be saved? The only hope of fallen, 
falling spirits, lies in the will of the Infinite compassing 
their will about, and carrying them and theirs by a way 



424 THE PEACE OF GOD RULING IN THE HEART. 

which they know not. We have a will, and room for 
its exercise: we have a will; but God has one too! and 
his will wraps itself round us and our will, and all our 
world; and for his own glory and our good, binds us, 
and carries us whither of ourselves we would not go. 
Saul of Tarsus had free will, and vigorously exercised it 
on that journey to Damascus ; but it is good for him 
now that another will, almighty, was thrown round him 
and his world that day, and carried him another way — 
carried the man and his will too into Christ. 

III. The Ruler: the power that sways a human heart 
and so saves and sanctifies the man — " the jpeace of God!' 

1 . It is God and no idol that should rule in a human 
heart. Ever since the fall other lords have had dominion 
over it : the grand design of the gospel is to drive the 
intruders out, and regain the kingdom for its rightfuJ Lord. 

We cannot enumerate these evil spirits which possess 
and rule men's hearts ; their name is legion. Some are 
vain, and some are vile. The devil does with us as he 
tried to do with the Sinless one, — shows us the kingdoms 
of the world and the glory of them, that he may rule in 
our hearts thereby. 

The conflict in and for the kingdom of a human heart 
is like that great trial between Elijah and the prophets 
of Baal. It is one, with God upon his side, against four 
hundred. It is a war in which there is no quarter on 
either side : if they prevail, the witness will be silenced, 
and God, whom he served, cast out; if he prevail, they 
will all be destroyed. 



THE PEACE OF GOD RULING IN THE HEART. 425 

In the course of life there are many changes of masters 
— at least many changes of the guard which the god of 
this world sets over his prisoners. When a man, in the 
state of nature, passes from youth to age, he changes his 
master, but is still a slave : when he passes from death 
into life in the regeneration, he escapes from Satan's 
bondage, and becomes the subject of the living God : he 
is never for a moment free. Formerly, he obeyed the 
law of sin in his members against the authority of God 
in his conscience; now, his heart obeys the law of God, 
and struggles against still indwelling sin as his foe; but 
first and last, then and now, he obeys. No man can 
serve two masters; but every man at every moment of 
his life serves one. 

If suddenly by a miracle our eyes were opened to see 
spiritual things, as we now see material, what a sight 
would meet our eyes, what a scream would escape our 
lips! We would be amazed to learn who is our neigh- 
bour's master, and ashamed to let our neighbour see who 
is our own. It is not to whom you say, Lord, Lord; but 
who really rules in your hearts. 

2. But more particularly: when it is settled that God 
should rule supreme in the hearts of men, the question 
is suggested, What" special attribute or manifestation of 
his being and character asserts and exercises the sove- 
reignty there? 

It is not his wrath. The terrors of the Lord are great, 
but they do not exercise supreme sway in a human heart, 
and lead all its affections whithersoever they will. His 
anger is not a ruling, leading, drawing power. It is 



426 THE PEACE OF GOD RULING IN THE HEART. 

mighty, but not to save. It is a force that casts the 
wicked into hell; but not a force that can win any son 
of man near in willing obedience. It is not a force in 
that direction. The stream of the Mississippi is a great 
power : it floats loaded ships or fallen forests downward 
with great velocity to the sea; but it cannot impel one 
tiny boat upward to the fertile regions near its source. 
This is done by another and an opposite power : a 
breath from heaven in the sail will carry the vessel up 
against the stream. So with the manifested terror of 
the Lord against all unrighteousness of men ; its power 
is great — greater than we can know — who knoweth the 
power of thine anger? — but it does not lead any one any 
way in the path of righteousness. 

Not this, but the peace of God rules in a human 
heart. This is a sufficient power, acting in the right 
direction, and laying hold at the proper place. The 
power lies in the cross of Christ; and if you would see 
it, you must look unto Jesus. God has given his own 
Son to bear iniquity and make reconciliation. He gives, 
and delights to give, free pardon and eternal life to lost 
sinners for Jesus' sake. The invitation is, " Come unto 
me" — "Whosoever will, let him come" — "Him that 
cometh, I will in no wise cast out," and " there is now 
no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus." God, 
in the act of pardoning a sinner for his dear Son's sake, 
makes an absolute separation in the man's account be- 
tween him and his sins. The pardoned man knows and 
says, " If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquity ; Lord, 
who shaU stand?" But he lays himself down in peace, 



THE PEACE OF GOD EULTNG IN THE HEART. 4 27 

knowing that God has marked his sins to the Saviour, 
and the Saviour's righteousness to him. Sin is taken 
away, and wrath. There is now no condemnation ; there 
is peace. This is the greatest thing for man. For you 
and me to-day, the greatest thing is to be pardoned and 
reconciled. Peace with God ; if I have that, I may want 
anything — all things. 

But this peace as a ruling power — w^hat effect does it 
produce? It is an old fear, and has continued till this 
day, that to set a man so free will encourage him in evil. 
Will this simple, instant, free, complete pardon of sin by 
God, not make sin seem a light thing to the man! No; 
nothing makes sin appear so sinful as its pardon through 
Christ crucified. The objection is an honest one, but it 
is not well founded. A blind man may honestly say the 
day is dark, or a foreigner say your language is obscure, 
when the day is bright and the words transparent ; but 
they know no better. God's peace, — his pardon, holds a 
heart from sin, and rules it in holiness. The effects 
which this peace is expected to produce, as is largely in- 
dicated in the context, are the common virtues of the 
Christian life, with love as usual for their climax and 
crown. The bond is not visible to the natural eye, but 
it is not therefore feeble : even in nature, the bonds that 
are invisible and intangible are surest, and strongest, and 
most enduring. 

If you had been present when the Creator framed 
these worlds, and set them in motion, you would have 
trembled for the consequences when you saw him launch 
this globe from his hand with such freedom and force 



428 THE PEACE OF GOD RULING IN THE HEAEZ 

into infinite space. You would have tliought, It will 
fall away, and away for ever, into darkness — into " the 
blackness of darkness for ever." You see no bond hold- 
ing it, and therefore you think it will burst away uncon- 
trolled ; but the law of its Maker unseen compasses this 
world about, and holds it in. It is far more effectively 
restrained than if material chains had been thrown around 
it. Softly, invisibly, but most perfectly, is the heavy 
ball held, and ruled, and led by a law of God, and made 
meeldy to do its Maker's bidding. 

Thus a sinner pardoned is thrown off free. All his 
sins are forgiven. God retains no account against him. 
He is severed from all the past ; and nothing taken 
thence can now be put in his indictment. The pardoned 
is pardoned wholly, pardoned freely, pardoned for ever. 
There is now no condemnation. The Son has made him 
free ; he is free indeed. But the very hand that freed 
him still holds him bound. Nay, though it seem a 
paradox, it is a great and sober truth, — to bind him, sets 
him loose ; to free him, holds him bound. Those who are 
still bound over to the judgment by the laAv's inexorable 
grasp on an unclean conscience, are loose in life, run riot 
in wickedness. " There is no hope ; We have loved idols, 
and after them wiU we go." It is the act of setting him 
free that hinds him. There are many glorious paradoxes 
in the gospel. " When I am weak, then am I strong," 
is one : when I am set free, then am I hound fast, is 
another. 

Our English word ohlige may help to explain some- 
what the mystery. Its literal meaning is, tied to : by 



THE PEACE OF GOD RULING IN THE HEART 429 

sucli and such a gift you will ohlige me ; that is, you 
will tie me to you. I was in your debt : I had by my 
own fault incurred the debt : you held the bond against 
me : you held me bound, and could any day have cast 
me into prison : you cancel all freely : you blot out 
that handwriting which was against me, by which you 
held me : you cut it through : you let me clean go. 
What then? Then and thereby, if there be one spark 
of truth or generosity in my being, you have bound me 
to yourself. By setting me free, you have bound me 
fast ; you have bound me by my heart. The bond is 
invisible; but it holds a soul, — it rules a life. Love is 
the cord of a man ; other cords will hold a brute, but in 
this only can a human soul be held. 

Such, although purer in nature and infinite in degree, 
— such is God's method in the gospel, of seizing, and 
binding, and ruling a human heart. It is his peace that 
rules; it is his act of letting me go free that binds my 
whole soul for ever. Other bonds will wear out or 
break; but this is a heavenly, godly thing. This chain 
will not rust. Love is an everlasting thing, for God is 
love. 

To a woman w4io had been caught in the flagrant act 
of sin, and brought before him for judgment, Jesus said, 
without question or stipulation, "Neither do I condemn 
thee; go.'' But what will become of the interests of 
morality, if you fling criminals off" forgiven, making no 
preliminary condition, and taking no security for the 
future? Fea;r not; the interests of morality are safest in. 
the hands of the Holy One. His free pardon holds the 



430 THE PEACE OF GOD RULING IN THE HEAET. 

pardoned by the heart. In letting the sinner off, he 
holds the sinner still : " Go, and sin no more." Pardon, 
so bestowed, begets love; and love fulfils the Forgiver's 
law. 

Free pardon is the only ruling power : either God 
rules you by that, or you abide his enemy. A forgiven 
soul is like this earth in space — set absolutely free, and 
yet held all and held always in constant, complete sub- 
mission. Oh, to be forgiven! Let go! Then and there- 
by would I be held. If the peace of God in Christ Jesus 
go about my heart and rule me, I shall neither go away 
from him in the course of life, nor be cast away from him 
in the judgment. 






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